Avatar Sokka
by StrangePointOfView
Summary: Koh the Face Stealer has given key members of the Avatar cast new faces. Why would he do this? Who was effected? And why, after a hundred years of waiting, is somebody else in the Avatar's body? Follow Sokka, as he takes up the mantle of the Avatar, and navigates through a world of intrigue and war to find his sister, and the real Avatar, and hopefully, win the war.
1. Prologue

_Hello! Okay... new teeth. That's weird. So, where was I?_

**Avatar Sokka**

**Book One: Revolution**

* * *

_"Zuko!"_

_The screaming of his nephew echoed in Iroh's ears. The darkness encircled them, trapped them, smothered them. Iroh felt his back pressed against an inky carapace and heard the click-clack of insectile legs. _

_"Aaaah, there's that face." The voice was as black as the body it belonged too, and Iroh knew it all too well. Well enough to fend for himself, but not when his nephew was with him – his wonderful nephew, who wore his emotions on his sleeve no matter how deep he buried them. His brave son, who now no longer had a face to be scarred. _

_"My favorite face. A face of fear." _

_Iroh tried to keep control of his own face, but the fear must have shone through anyways. "Spirit!" Iroh yelled. "I command you in the name of Agni –"_

_"Who do you think ordered me to do this?"_

_A white mask in the darkness, and then all Iroh felt was darkness._

_"Two down. Thirty four to go."_

* * *

Iroh woke with a start.

Everything was fading like a bad dream, but Iroh knew of the spirit world, and their methods. He clung to the dream like a rope on the edge of a cliff, pulling himself back to the light of day.

"Zuko." Iroh muttered. "Zuko's in danger." He pushed himself to his feet.

And that was when he noticed that he'd somehow lost two hundred pounds during the night. Honestly, it felt like he was thirteen again.

He noticed that he was in a small wooden room, with windows overlooking the forest, not in the decommissioned Fire Nation steamer that should have been travelling through the waters of the South Pole.

He noticed his voice was not the soft, soothing voice, smoothed by tea but roughened by age and by shouting a general's commands.

He noticed a great many things, but above all he noticed the mirror on the bedside table.

He picked it up, with a hands that was tanned in part by the sun and in part by water tribe heritage. And when he looked in the mirror, he saw a face that was not his own.

Iroh frowned.

He quickly put on the clothes in the room, noting any signs they had to give. Clearly, they belonged to a warrior. Not a hunter, but perhaps a leader. There were the soft stains of blood, but no grain residue around the pants, so somebody of status. Given the lack of greens in the room, despite the earthy tones, this was someone who felt no particular obligation to his nation – someone who blazed his own trail.

Iroh picked up the twin swords in the room. They were similar to his nephew's dao blades, but had the peculiar addition of a hook at the ends of the blades. Iroh made a note to ask Zuko, or perhaps Pandaio, to instruct him in the wielding of these weapons.

Anybody who used them either sacrificed utility for style, or wielded them with the grace of a tigerswan. Or, they didn't use them at all. Weapons like these were a fine way to lose an appendage.

As an afterthought, Iroh drew forth his chi, and attempted to summon a flame in the palm of his hand. No flame. He would test the other elements later, but for now Iroh would accept the swords, and assume his new body was not a bender.

In fact, he shouldn't assume so much to begin with. He recalled an enlightening conversation with his friend Bumi, concerning timebending. If one reached the conclusion that his spirit had been stolen away into another's body, then why assume the body he now inhabited was in the present? It could easily be a hundred years before the war even began, or a hundred years after the war was won. He'd have to inquire about that.

He ran through his objectives in his mind;

1a) Find and reunite with Zuko.

1b) Rescue Zuko from whatever trouble they're in.

2) Acquire necessary information about this situation (Time, Body, Zuko's location).

3) Acquire necessary resources (Troops? Weapons? Tea?) to obtain victory in this situation.

4) Help those along my path, and stop to smell the roses.

Iroh nodded. Yes, that sounded about right. Now, to find Zuko – knowing his nephew, he need only find the largest source of trouble, and his nephew would be in the thick of it. He would have to find the nearest town, contact what members of the White Lotus as he could for information, and procure a means of transportation. Would it be faster to walk, or to work a day for some wages?

Emerging from the room, Iroh was struck with a sense of awe. He was in a hut – a small hut, neither polished nor poorly made. But the hut was built with such craft, that it rested in the branches of an enormous tree.

Iroh walked along the branch, taking in the sight with wonder. Below him were many more huts, each built on their own tree branches. A complex system of bridges, ropes, and planks, littered the forest. It was a marvel of engineering, and concealment. Many people seemed to live in this secret city among the tress, and were emerging for their morning chores, some chatting amicably and having breakfast.

Iroh considered joining them, for pleasant company and information, or moving on quickly to find his nephew.

"Hey Jet!"

Iroh spun around, curious as to whether he was being addressed or not. A pair of children were pulling themselves up to his branch with a basket pulley system. One was a boy so thin, he couldn't have eaten properly in days. His eyes echoed with battles past, and his bow expertly loose at his side. The other was a young lady (although, she seemed to be trying to hide her true gender) that was almost equally thin and wearing ragged, mudstained clothes. The wicked glint in her eyes, along with the handles of various hidden knives Iroh could pick out, identified her and her companion as fearsome warriors.

"The Duke's got breakfast going on the campfire." The girl said, clearly addressing him. "I know you had a late night, but he won't start eating until you're there.

So, his new name was to be Jet was it? What game did Koh think he was playing?

Iroh would play along for now. Perhaps The Duke was the leader of this outfit, in which case he could have pertinent information. "Well, I'd best not keep The Duke waiting." He said, getting into the basket with what he hoped was a smile that Jet would smile.

* * *

Kuei had no idea what to think.

He'd just woken up from a nice sleep. It was his mother's birthday party and perhaps, well, if he was being honest he went overboard on the wine. Nevertheless, he felt sober now. Very sober.

So obviously, this was either a very realistic dream, or he was in somebody else's body. He didn't know which disturbed him more, but either way, he had more important issues to deal with.

He stood in front of an ornate full length mirror, looking up his nose.

This body sure had a lot of nose hair.

Fascinating.

Kuei pushed and squished against his face. It hurt a little – his arms were very strong, muscles pushing tight against the skin. But more importantly, he had very large, and very fuzzy sideburns. He spent a moment admiring the fuzziness, and wondered whether he should grow sideburns, or perhaps buy a platypus bear to run his hands through the fur.

A man walked into the tent. Kuei nodded to him in greeting. "Hello good sir. May I ask whose tent I'm in?"

The man stopped, and stared at Kuei like he'd just threatened the poor soul. "Y-your tent sir." He bowed low. "My apologies, Commander, I should have asked permission before coming in –"

Kuei waved the man's apologies away. It wasn't his tent after all. "It's quite alright lad. Now, can you tell me who I am?"

The poor boy gulped, and Kuei frowned inside himself for asking questions that seemed to sound threatening. "You are my Superior, sir!" The lad said, bowing again. "Commander Zhao, foremost Commander of the Firenation navy."

"Am I really?" Kuei stared at the man. "What an fascinating experience this is."

Kuei had always had an inquisitive mind. He'd always yearned for knowledge of the world around him, and now he had a prime chance to see the wonders of his neighbors to the West. Whenever he asked Long Feng about the Fire Nation, his advisor seemed to sidetrack himself with talk of trades. He was always so absent minded, that Long Feng.

"Well then." Kuei clapped his hands with an excitement that startled the subordinate. "Help me pick out some suitable commanding clothes will you? I want to… uh… inspect the fleet!" Kuei restrained himself from giggling like a schoolchild.

* * *

When Hakoda woke up, the first thing he noticed was the weight.

He seemed to have put on several pounds in his sleep. And a suit of armor. Fire nation armor.

He pulled himself up slowly, blearily taking in his surroundings.

He was in the middle of a camp. Five Komodo Rhinos stood nearby, and four soldiers slept beside him. Hadoka had seen these four before. They were members of the Rough Rhino Riders. His rebellion had come to blows with them many times. And apparently, these blundering psychopaths had kidnapped him but forgot to tie him up.

But wait… there were five Rough Rhino Riders.

Where was their leader?

Hakoda yawned silently, and rotated himself around slowly on his heel. There was nobody else in sight.

"Mongke." Hakoda spun, as the archer hoisted himself up silently. "Mongke, what's wrong?"

The others were slowly waking up. Hakoda felt a surge of panic – before a surge of realization.

The archer thought he was their leader.

Probably slightly sleep addled, but Hakoda never passed up on an opportunity like this.

"I thought I heard something." He said. "Can you see anything?"

The archer immdediately raced off, bow in his hand, circling around the clearing as he searched for anything unusual. The others were definitely awake now, and also readying their weapons. But none of the weapons were pointed at him yet.

"Nothing." The archer said, putting his arrow back in its quiver. "Nevertheless, we should keep moving. Where do we ride to Mongke?"

The others were looking at him expectantly, and for the seventh time since he'd left home, Hakoda thanked the spirits for his good fortune. They actually believed he was their leader!

This he could work with. Oh yes, Hakoda could definitely work with this. When fortune dropped something like this in his lap, he would always take it, no matter how confused he was.

"We ride West!" He declared, confidently striding to one of the Komodo Rhinos. With a heave he attempted to pull himself into the saddle – and was promptly bucked off.

The others looked at him in confusion. "Mongke… that's Yeh-Lu's rhino." The one with the spear said.

"… Obviously." Hakoda said, nodding as if he'd known that all along. "I was just going to climb over him to get to my rhino. But if you all want to get on first, be my guest. We should get moving."

* * *

June woke up without the splitting headache she was accustomed to.

And without the flat belly she was accustomed to.

She looked down at her swollen body, with her emotions swinging wildly between 'I must be dreaming/in a drunken stupor' and 'Nonononononononononononononono!'.

"What happened last night?" She wondered.

Then she felt a shifting in the bed beside her, and the man sleeping next to her woke up. "Good morning my beautiful turtleduck." He said, sappily.

June punched him off the bed.

* * *

"RISE AND SHINE LAZY BONES!"

Katara fell out of bed with a yelp, as somebody clanged a bunch of pots and pans right near her ear.

Right. Near. Her. Ear.

Whoever was responsible – justice would be meted out. Mornings were almost as sacred as waterbending – you should never have to wake up at the break of dawn. I mean, this was the South Pole for crying out loud! There was an entire month where dawn never came!

No. Whoever did this would feel her wrath. They would be so badly frozen, they'd need a firebender to get them out.

Katara looked up at her mystery assailant. It was some girl wearing a green dress, and enough face paint to make Sokka jealous.

"Sorry Suki." She said, giggling softly. "But this is the first time you didn't wake up for morning training in – well, ever! The girls and I thought a little payback was in order. Can you really blame us?"

"… Run if you value your life."

And so, Katara had chased this mysterious laughing girl out the door of her house, and onto the beach where a line of similarly dressed girls were waiting, before she realized something.

She didn't live in a house.

She didn't have a bed.

Her village didn't have a girl her age.

Much less several girls her age.

Much less the green clothe required to dress them all in.

And were those trees? She'd never seen trees before. She'd heard stories though. Were those what trees looked like?

Where was she?

"Where am I?" Katara asked. And suddenly she realized who she was asking. "Who are you?"

The girl she was chasing stopped, and looked inquisitively at Katara. "I'm Chijin."

"No she's not!" One of the girls called from the sidelines. "She's Cynna, I'm Chijin, don't fall for her lies Suki!"

Katara reached behind her to draw water from the river. She wasn't a master water bender. Not yet. But she could still freeze someone to the ground. "I won't ask you again!" She yelled. "Where am I?"

The girl who'd wokan her – Cynna – stepped forward cautiously, and inquisitively. "Suki, what do you mean? You're on Kyoshi island. Your home?"

"My name's not Suki!" Katara yelled. "It's Katara, from the southern water tribe!" She flung the water forward with all her might, willing it to freeze…

And nothing happened.

Cynna stepped forward. "Suki? Er… Katara? What are you doing?"

Katara looked back at the river, and tried to pull water from it. Nothing happened. The familiar flow of chi down her arms, the water moving from its body… nothing happened.

"My bending…" Katara began to shake. "My bending? What happened to my bending?"

"Woah." Cynna rushed up, and caught Katara as she fell. "Girls! Something's wrong with Suki!"

* * *

Suki wanted answers.

She'd woken up in some sort of ice palace. Her reflection showed a face that was not her own.

Her mind went through the three sorts of things that happened to her; the stuff she made happen, the stuff her friends made happen, and the stuff her enemies made happen. She didn't transport herself in the night to an ice fortress then surgically operate on her face. And this seemed just a little too complicated to be one of her girl's pranks.

So, somebody did this against her, and for nefarious purposes.

Hence the answers, and her desire thereof.

None of the clothes in the wardrobe were desirable for sneaking out in. She considered escape in her sleeping garments, but it was freezing outside. So, she dressed as warmly as she could, in the clothes that least limited her movements. Thankfully, she was used to fighting in a dress.

She left via the window. Below her was a sprawling metropolis. Were all the people below in on this? Unlikely. So it would be a good place to search for allies. But not a good place to find answers.

As she crept along the outskirts of the palace, the answer hit her. All she needed to do was utilize her stealth training and disappear. Once her captors realized she'd escaped, they'd be looking for her, and she could listen in on rumors to find out what their reasons for looking for her were.

It would be rough going. Especially since Suki seemed weaker than normal. Probably her captors had drugged her – for who knows how long? She'd need to find a calendar.

With a deep breath, ready for a shock, she dove off the ledge she'd been slinking along, and into the frigid waters below.

* * *

Chit Sang looked around.

He was sitting on top of some sort of mountain. The birds were singing, clear mountain lakes were running, the sun was shining, and all was right with the world.

Yet when he'd went to sleep, he'd been in the prison that even other firenation prisons called inhumane.

He stroked his new beard thoughtfully, with his wrinkly, sun-blackened hand.

He shrugged.

"Not the strangest thing to happen to me." He muttered, in a squeaky voice.

He drank his onion and banana juice with the relish of a free man.

* * *

Mongke, the leader of the Rough Rhino Riders, was baffled.

Having slept in open fields for the last several years of his life, he woke up almost instantly to the sound of a steamer's engine.

It was a short jump from there, to realizing he'd woken up as General Iroh.

Mongke would never have guessed, ever, that he would wake up one day and be that tea-guzzling old coot. But here they were. Here he was? He was confused.

He walked out onto the deck, and wondered what he should do.

"Iroh!"

Suddenly, a human missile launched itself at Mongke, and wrapped itself around his midsection. Mongke immediately felt the urge to kill him violently. But when he realized who it was, he restrained itself. Zhao had often regaled him of the tale of Prince Zuko's banishment. He was looking down at one of the most recognizable faces in the Fire Nation.

"It's good to see you old man!" The fire prince said, with a wide smile.

"Uh… yes… well, of course it is." Mongke said, gruffly.

Zuko looked up at him questioningly, and for a moment Mongke wondered whether the prince suspected something was wrong. Then the smile was back on his face, and Zuko laughed. "Oh Uncle dear, I just had the most peculiar nightmare! You see, the earth was made of sky, and the air was made of earth, and as I was walking along I suddenly choked on a ruby…"

Mongke was only half listening to the mad ramblings. He'd heard that the young prince was simple in the head, but he hadn't realized the lad was this adle-brained. It would be easy to fool this ridiculous child into thinking he was General Iroh.

Mongke blinked in surprise. He wondered where that thought had come from. He still couldn't wrap his mind around it – but for whatever reason, he was General Iroh now. Maybe the spirits had seen his slow descent into senility like the rest of the Fire Nation military had. Maybe they'd seen fit to put someone more responsible in his place.

Mongke beamed with that flash of inspiration. Yes, all he had to do was pretend to be General Iroh… he'd win the favor of the Firelord. He'd be a hero. He might even be able to take the throne somehow! Yes! Who needed Ozai's favor when he could have Ozai's throne!? Or better yet, the boy seemed as foolish as his uncle… Mongke could use him as a puppet king, and retire in the lap of luxury!

Mongke beamed at his hastily made and ill-thought out plan of glorious glories, and turned his attention back to the future puppet Prince Zuko.

"… And I'm not sure when I am any more." Zuko said. "Maybe I'm in the past, maybe the future, who knows?" Zuko turned his attention to Mongke. "Do you know the date?"

As it happened… Mongle didn't. "You have two eyes." Mongke said. "Can't you read a calendar?" Agni, the lad was a simpleton.

Zuko pouted. "Aaw, Uncle, you're no fun!" He whined. "You're having one of your grumpy days, aren't you? I know what'll help! Sing the kissing trees song!"

Mongke paled. "The… kissing trees song?"

He did not know that song.

Zuko nodded. "It always makes you feel better when you're being grumpy!"

Mongke licked his lips. "Uh… why don't you start the song off for me nephew?"

Zuko shook his head, still smiling like a madman. This was less than helpful in Mongke's opinion.

"Uh… there once were two trees… and they kissed…" Mongke sang. Zuko nodded, encouragingly. "One was a girl tree… one was a boy tree…"

"Do the dance." Zuko encouraged him.

Mongke started swaying, which was difficult in Iroh's overweight body. "The girl tree had bright red lips… but there was a bird in her… leaves… the boy tree still wanted to kiss her… but he... uh... had no lips... because he was a tree..."

Thankfully, it was about this time when Mongke thought of a solution. "And the HACK COUGH, COUGH, COUGH!" Iroh wheezed. "Oh, it appears my throat is sore." Mongke growled. "I don't think I can sing any more Zuko."

"That's okay." Zuko said, and Mongke thought he saw the half-wit trying to hold back laughter. "There are other ways I can cheer you up! I'll go and make you your favorite breakfast uncle!"

Mongke sighed with relief, as the boy ran into the ship. _Honestly,_ he thought, _Iroh is a duckmonkey's uncle._ He'd have to work at it even to make this poor fool a decent puppet.

Mongke didn't notice the glimmer of mischief in 'Zuko's' eyes.


	2. The Day The New Avatar Was Chosen

_Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty. __It's not the time  
that matters, it's the person._

**Avatar Sokka**

**The Day The New Avatar Was Chosen**

* * *

Zuko and Toph Bei Fong were two very similar people. They both persevered in difficult situations. They both grew up in terrible homes. Neither would brook sass from anybody.

But in one very important aspect, they differed.

Toph slept like the dead. Zuko rose with the sun.

And so it was that Toph was still sleeping when Zuko woke up in the same room.

The pair of them were sleeping on fur mats, in a rather comfortable igloo. They both had dark skin, and bright blue eyes.

Zuko woke up drenched with sweat, as if he'd had a nightmare.

"Uncle!" He squeaked out, in a voice that hadn't made it to puberty yet.

His heart hammering, he tried to settle down. It felt like he'd just had a nightmare, but he couldn't remember exactly what.

Then he realized his warrior's instincts had kicked in. He began to take in his surroundings, looking for the danger and confusion he sensed…

And found himself in an igloo, with a girl sleeping at his side.

"Am I still dreaming?" He asked himself. His hand went to his throat, rubbing it slightly, as he looked around the igloo.

It looked a lot like how he'd been taught the Southern water savages lived. There was some meat and very, very strange plants hanging from the ceiling. The hut was lined with furs, and primitive tools made of bone.

"I have got to be dreaming." He decided. He slapped himself. SLAP. "Wake up Zuko." SLAP. "Wake up."

"Mmmmf… who's there?"

The girl was slowly waking up. Zuko rounded on her. "You! Peasant! Am I dreaming?"

The girl chuckled. "I must be the one dreaming if somebody's calling me a peasant." She blearily rubbed her eyes… and froze, looking straight ahead.

"This is…" Zuko struggled for words. "This is cold! I've never felt cold in a dream before! But… but I'm a water peasant! This can't be real!"

"I… can… see…" The girl slowly raised her hand to her eyes.

Zuko frowned. "What? You're not making any sense!"

"I… I can see." The girl repeated. She looked around. "Wow. Wow! WOW!"

"What's so special about seeing?" Zuko snarled frustratedly.

"I've been blind for all of my life." The girl said, with a simple joy.

Zuko didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything.

She pointed excitedly at the clothes she was wearing. "What color is this?"

"Blue." Zuko answered.

She pointed to the walls of the igloo. "And what color is this?"

Zuko's brow furrowed. "Still blue."

Now the girl frowned. "But… they're different colors."

"No they aren't." Zuko snapped with impatient. "Look, who are you?"

"I have no idea." The girl said, pulling her hair-loopies in front of her eyes to examine them with wonder.

"That's ridiculous." Zuko said immediately. "You must have some idea who you are?"

"Why?" The girl asked, now feeling the texture of the ice. "Do you know who you are?"

"I am Zuko." Zuko thumped a fist against his chest proudly. "Son of Ozai, Prince of the Fire Nation."

The girl let out an indelicate snortle. "Well 'oh mighty prince' I'm not seeing much fire nation decorum with my new peepers." She looked around. "Unless one of these colors is red, and you're not telling me?"

"It's BLUE!" Zuko snarled. "Everything around you is either blue, or white! Except for that… thing… which I hope is clay. But I am the Prince of the Fire Nation!"

"Yeesh, settle down your royal blueness." The girl grimaced for the first time, and Zuko felt a wave of relief that she might finally be taking this seriously. A wave that was quickly dashed.

"I'm just saying, how do you know you're a prince? I mean, I spent most of my life believing that I was Toph Be – because that's who people thought I was. Just plain old Toph, a blind little peasant girl in Gaoling. But now I'm clearly not blind any more. So, who's to say that I'm not some girl living in an igloo with her hair loopies and a crazy boy who thinks he's a prince? Which is the reality? Which is the dream?"

She started poking at the lump in the corner that was hopefully clay.

"Enough!" Zuko yelled. "You sound like my Uncle! I am a prince of the fire nation, and you will know your place!" He thrust a fist out, if only to scorch the girl's dress a little.

…

Nothing happened.

The girl – Toph – she was staring at him.

"Did you just try to firebend at me?"

"… No." Zuko said defensively. "I was just… emphasizing my point. By punching the air. I… do that sometimes. When I do firebend at you, you'll know it!"

Toph smiled wickedly. It was the same way Azula smiled. "I can tell you're lying!" She said in a sing-song voice.

And that did it. It's not that Zuko was unintelligent; he wasn't perfect like Azula, but he could strategize with the best of his father's court, if they let him. But he preferred simplicity. He preferred to stick to what little honor he had left. He preferred not to be mocked by a strange, slightly mad girl.

He really should have tried to interrogate her, but attacking her was so much simpler.

He swung a punch, and the girl blocked it on reflex, surprise in her eyes. He threw a jab to her left, her stomach, her face again, each one blocked.

But Zuko had her measure now. Judging by her stance alone she used to be an earthbender – but a poor one. That wasn't a stance any of the earthbending soldiers he'd fought had taken. Zuko had fought hardened bending Earth Kingdom soldiers before, and he could beat them in their element. This poor peasant couldn't hope to beat him, especially since she couldn't bend.

Or at least, that's what he thought, until one of the ice bricks in the igloo was came flying out and crashed into his chest.

"What!?" He spun to his feet, grabbing the nearest implements as he did so – a shovel and a hairbrush.

The girl had kicked off her wool socks. Her toes flexed on the icy floor of the igloo, and her hands ran along the wall. "Alright Blue." She said. "I'm no waterbender, but I am a fast learner. You want a piece of the Blind Bandit, you'd better get ready to choke!"

Zuko spun the shovel with a flourish, and used the hairbrush to make the universal gesture for 'bring it on'.

Toph stomped her foot, and cracks ran through the ice. Zuko barely ducked out of the way in time, as a pillar of ice burst up and plowed through the wall behind him. Their little igloo unceremoniously exploded.

The village was just beginning to begin their day. Some of the children were beginning to play games, while the adults were beginning their chores. They all stopped and stared as the two children who had protected them for so long, began to fight each other in a heretofore unseen display of skill.

Zuko sent several jabs at Toph with his shovel. She sidestepped each one, then kicked the ground, sending the ice cracking underneath Zuko's feet. He leaped out of the way, then closed the distance again, using the shovel to shield himself as he went in close to jab at her with the hairbrush.

She caught the hairbrush before the blow landed. "Seriously?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

Zuko swept her legs, and she collapsed with a grunt. The weakness of all Earthbenders were their stances. He swung his shovel again, but Toph rolled out of the way, covering herself with a snow coating. Zuko shoved his shovel into its center… but it was just snow.

Toph burst out of the snow behind him, and launched a salvo of ice blocks. Zuko dodged the first two, but the third hit him in the chest and sent him rolling.

Zuko recovered quickly, and got into a ready stance…

"Wow! That was so cool!"

And stopped, as a little boy walked directly between him and Toph on the battle field.

"Why don't you ever teach us moves like that General Sokka?" The boy asked, his eyes wide in wonder.

Zuko felt time slow. It had been… a while, since any boy had looked at him like that. He wanted to bask in the feeling.

Then he remembered his enemy. "Look out!" He told the kid, stepping between him and Toph. "She's…"

Toph was no longer in a fighting stance. She was sitting on the ground, giggling behind her hand.

_Oh, right._ Zuko thought. _She's not actually evil, she's just annoying._

He suspected he ought to apologize to her. After all, if she were Fire Nation he might have enjoyed her strange confidence.

But then he felt a boy jump onto his back.

More than one boy.

"What is happeniiiiiiii –" Zuko yelped as the village's population of little boys swarmed on top of him, pulling him down to the ice.

Now Toph was doubling over in full blown laughter.

"General Sokka that was awesome!" The kids cheered.

"Did you teach Katara how to water bend?"

"Did you explode your house?"

"Sokka… I made yellow snow."

"Can you explode other things?"

Zuko wished he could explode other things right now.

His liberation came in the voice of an old lady. "Now now children, Sokka has chores to do. You can ask him to teach you how to fight later."

The kids began to get off, and Zuko felt a surge of gratitutde towards the old woman. Unfortunately, it only lasted until he felt a firm grip on his ear yank him up.

"Ow!" He cried, as he got a full look at the woman. She looked absolutely ancient, bent over like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, a laughing smile on her face that didn't quite reach her firm, questioning eyes or her firm, punishing grip.

Toph's ear was in her other hand, the girl bent over awkwardly as the old lady held the ear at waist height. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow…" She muttered, trying to loosen the old lady's grip on her ear.

"Now, Sokka, Katara, would either of you care to explain what that was about?" She asked, sweetly.

Zuko and Toph's eyes met. He tried to think of a way to communicate secretly in front of the old lady's hawk-like gaze, and from the look of things she was panicking for an answer as much as she was.

"I see." The old lady frowned. "Won't tell me? I know you two have had your ups and downs before, but that's what brothers and sisters do. There was no call for you to break our house."

"You call that a house?" Zuko muttered.

Toph glared at him and kicked him in the shins.

Zuko reached over and punched her.

Their eyes met, and they both tried to tackled each other, but the old lady still had a grip on their ears, and she yanked them back before they could even start. "Enough!" She snapped at the pair of them, silently enough that the children wouldn't hear.

She looked deep into Zuko's eyes. Zuko flinched, remembering the same glare on his father's face, just before he announced that Agni Kai as punishment. Then she turned and sent that same glare at Toph. If she was honest about being blind her whole life, then a glare like that would be quite a shock for –

And now she's hyperventilating. Serves her right.

"I don't know what's going on between you two." The old lady said. "It must be something serious if you won't even tell your Gran-gran. But we're a family. And family is all we have out here. So. You two go out for food. And whatever it is going on between you two, have it settled by the time you get back."

"You got it Gran-gran!" Toph accepted immediately. She sent Zuko a look.

Zuko rolled his eyes. "Fine."

"And get some shoes on Katara dear, or you'll catch your death!"

* * *

As it turned out, Iroh's favorite breakfast on 'grumpy mornings' was Baked Beans Bonanza!

Mongke's gut felt terrible.

He waddled out onto the deck, trying to avoid anything that would make him feel worse. He always got seasick, but being seasick in the open was better than being seasick in his cramped quarters.

"Uncle Iroh!"

A thousand festering plagues and boils! DID THIS SIMPLETON NEVER SLEEP!?

Mongke watched as Zuko stopped his amateurish firebending practice and danced up next to him. Mongke knew he had to put up with the Firelord's idiot son if he wanted to take advantage of this situation, but he was having trouble fighting the urge to just fling him over the side of the ship.

"Uncle Iroh!" Zuko giggled. "I learned how to do the Firefly Stance today!"

Mongke barely kept himself from scoffing. The Firefly stance was one of the first stances a firebender learned. Was the simple prince so adle-brained that he had yet to master even the basics?

"Oh joy. I will try to contain my enthusiasm." Mongke said. He tried to think of something wise. Iroh used to spout fortune cookie sayings all the time. "But remember nephew… Having a large head… will only make your body… look freakishly smaller."

Zuko nodded. "That was really wise Uncle."

_It was?_ "Of course it was." Mongke nodded, amicably.

"And it's good to hear your voice is back too!" Zuko said with a small laugh. "Maybe we should sing again!"

_AGNI NO!_ Rang the cry through Mongke's terrified mind.

"Actually Nephew, it is almost time for tea." He said, trying desperately not to let his inner irritation show.

"Of course." Bumi said, looking at Mongke shrewdly. "We always have tea this time of day."

Mongke knew that of course. During the siege of Ba Sing Seh, General Iroh would halt the entire assault so that his troups could gather around a tea set. But why did Zuko look like he'd just been given a piece to some sort of puzzle.

"I only came onto the deck to enjoy some fresh air before –"

"Nonsense!" Zuko clapped Mongke on the back. "Come along uncle, I have your favorite tea prepared on the poopdeck!"

Mongke looked over, and glowered at the tea and table set. "I certainly hope my favorite tea doesn't react as strongly as my favorite breakfast."

"Aaaw, my uncle wuncle's still sicky-poo!" Zuko shot him a pout. "Come on, let's get some tea in that jolly ol' belly of yours!" Zuko gave Mongke a fond nudge to the stomach – or what was probably meant to be a fond nudge. Really, it was more like a nerve strike.

For the fifth time today, Mongke cursed the clumsy oafish spawn of Ozai as the blow forced him to let rip a fiery stream from his behind.

In agony, Mongke allowed himself to be seated at the table, as Zuko began to pour the tea. Mongke took a sip and grimaced. "This tea is cold." He grunted.

"Oops, sorry." Zuko smiled widely, like a kid whose hand was caught in a cookie jar, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. "I set it out a while ago, I didn't think you'd be so sick and so slow."

Mongke grunted, not trusting himself to apologize civilly to the brat. He knew for a fact that he was exactly on time for Iroh's afternoon tea. It had been drilled so thoroughly into him during the Seige, it was as instinctual as waking up an hour before dawn.

Instead of retorting, he simply warmed the tea up with his firebending, not catching the look of interest his fake nephew was giving him.

"Say, Uncle." Zuko said, putting on a ponderous pose. "I was thinking… we only have a few fire bending soldiers on board. We should vary our troops a little more, don't you think?"

"Certainly." Mongke nodded, unsure of where the young prince was heading with this.

"During the Siege of Ba Sing Seh, which soldiers were of the most use?" Zuko further prompted him.

A light glinted in Mongke's eyes, as he realized he could use this to his advantage, and get his old friends back. "Why, Rhino Riders of course!" He said. "They're the finest troops any General could wish for!"

"Yes, I can see how rhino riders would be useful, in assaulting the largest and thickest wall in the Earth Kingdom." Zuko chuckled, slapping his forehead with his palm. "Like a spiderfly trapped in its own web." He muttered to himself in amusement.

"Exactly." Mongke didn't know what Zuko meant by that last comment, but he pressed on. "And I know where to find the best Rhino Riders in any nation!"

"I remember you telling me about some komodo rhino riders in Ba Sing Seh." Zuko stroked his chin in thought. "Led by a firebender named Mongke? I believe you described him as – the greatest military disgrace to our nation since Kuzon the Crazy?"

Mongke froze. "I don't believe I used those. Exact. Words."

"Maybe?" Zuko shrugged. "I think you also said 'you'd have to go to the Great Desert and find some Elephant Scarabs to get a bigger pile of –"

"I get it." Mongke cut him off abruptly.

"He couldn't light fire to a pile of straw?" Zuko hazarded. "He wears a nose ring to stop what few brains he has from leaking out? He would get lost in a room with one door? Throw me a line Uncle, I know you said at least one of those things."

"I get it!" Mongke snapped. "I have a low opinion of Colonel Mongke! This is not news to me!"

Zuko leaned back on his chair, folded his hands behind his head, and smirked in triumph.

Mongke growled. It was almost as if Zuko knew he was Mongke, and was deliberately messing with his head! But that would be giving this simpleton too much credit. Still, the prince couldn't be more irritating even if it was deliberate!

Angrily, he bit into one of the fire flakes, and instantly spat them out. "Why do these Fire Flakes taste like fruit!?" He yelped.

"Oh, that." Zuko's baffoonic smile widened. "I prepared the fireflakes just like you always have them Uncle! I mixed in tradition flavoring, with fruit fire flakes, vegetarian flakes, X-tra spicy fire flakes, and sour flakes! I know you love the random chance that goes into deciding which one you eat. You never know which flavor you're going to get!"

Mongke felt sick. Now he knew who kept rearranging the fireflakes during the siege of Ba Sing Seh.

How did the general get so old with these eating habits?

"I think I will stick with the tea." He muttered, bitterly.

Zuko offered him a jaunty wink that made Mongke want to burn someone.

* * *

Toph let her new hand drift lazily in the water.

Not too long though – this water was cold! Just long enough that she could let her senses work.

Water was not nearly as solid as earth. Earth was defined, and solid. Any ripples that went through the earth came from people or creatures walking on top of it. With water, you had creatures swimming through the water, as well as icebergs and the canoe on top, and then the ripples themselves were solid enough that they caused ripples of their own. And not all of it was water! Sensing earth meant you sensed earth, with only the occasional aquifer or air pocket. Sensing water meant sifting through the dirt that was in the water, and the fish, and the plants, and the tiny little things she felt that she didn't even have names for. For all she knew, she was the first one to have any idea those tiny things existed!

Still, if her earth sense was like seeing clearly, then her newfound water sense was like trying to see through a fog.

It was still better than relying on her own peepers to tell her what was below in the dark arctic waters.

"Left." She directed, and Zuko shifted his spear. She waited for a moment, then said; "Now."

She'd gotten quite the feel for his reaction time over their fishing expedition, and his aim was true. He took the fish off the end of his spear and tossed it into the pile with the rest of the fish they'd caught. The village could rest with full bellies tonight.

Where seeing through the earth was second nature to her, seeing through Zuko was like trying to see through wood. Either with her eyes, or with her bending sense.

Any questions she asked Zuko got a short, and gruff answer. At first, she thought he was an idiot ("So you see nothing wrong with trying to conquer the Earth Kingdom?" "Nothing.") but at other times, he'd surprise her with his insight ("So, how many fish do you think we've caught yet?" "That village looked starving. A number doesn't matter as much as catching as much as we can."). He could be kind ("So, I notice you didn't hurt the kids?" "They're kids." "Yeah, but, they'll grow up to be enemies of the Fire Nation and you seemed like you really wanted to win our fight." "I don't hurt kids.") and he could be really mean ("So, do you have any sense of humor? Like, at all?" "For the last time. Please. Stop. Talking.").

Toph had really only ever hung out with earthbenders before. She had a good feel for earthbenders. But Zuko – despite his hard core, he was no earthbender, and she was beginning to realize there was a difference between the nations.

For the hundredth time, she wished her parents had let her see more of the world then just her garden.

"So, any ideas on what we should do next?" Toph asked.

"Shut. Up." Zuko repeated. Toph was getting real tired of this attitude, real fast.

"Well, we gotta decide something." Toph shrugged. "I mean, we're stuck in the bodies of a couple of water –"

"We aren't!" Zuko snapped. That was the most reaction she'd managed to get out of him so far. "We aren't in other people's bodies. That's just… it's impossible! It can't happen!"

Toph raised an eyebrow. One of the few times her mother spent any time with her was to teach her social lessons, like how to raise her eyebrow properly. So she was quite impressive at it.

"My four foot stature and hair loopie thingies beg to differ Blue."

"Stop calling me that!" Zuko seemed to be clamming up again, so Toph struck while the blow was fresh.

"So what, you think we're insane then?" Toph challenged. "You think, what, we're really Katara and Sokka, but we imagined we were Toph and Zuko?"

"No!" Zuko snapped again. "I am Zuko!"

"Then what are you doing in Sokka's body?" Toph prodded.

"… This is just a dream." Zuko said, turning back to the water. "Now please, stop talking."

He knew this wasn't a dream, and Toph knew he knew it. If he really thought this was a dream, he wouldn't be concerned about catching fish, or getting her to be quiet. But she felt like she had a good idea about what his problem was.

It wasn't that he was stupid. He had the answers. He just couldn't… reach them. Like a prisoner couldn't reach past the bars of his cell.

Yes, Toph decided, Zuko was trapped. He had no agency of his own. He wasn't even aware that he could make choices, much less that there were choices available to him that he had not considered. Toph decided that this must be Zuko's problem. She was very familiar with being trapped.

Unfortunately, she could not tell what he was trapped by. What were the walls that closed around him? Whatever they were, he did not have the strength of character to find a way out, over, or through on his own. And she didn't have time to free him before she got annoyed enough to kill him. So she'd have to find another way.

She dipped her other hand into the water. "A little further out." She said, eventually.

Zuko adjusted his spear.

"Little further."

Zuko leaned out, and raised an eyebrow at her.

She waited, for the same amount of time she waited for the other fish. "Now."

Zuko's spear shot into the water. But there was no fish there, swimming along to be skewered. Toph launched herself to the end of the boat, put Zuko into a hold (which the Hippo had taught her, even though her original body was too small to pull the move off herself) and shoved Zuko's head into the cold arctic water.

He thrashed and squirmed, and Toph was sure that if he could still firebend she'd have been roasted by now. Eventually she pulled his head out of the water. Time for some tough love.

"Now listen here your royal crybaby-ness!" She snarled. "Does this feel like a dream to you!?"

She dunked his head under the water again. She was sure she'd heard him take a deep breath first, so she held it under a little longer, before pulling him back up.

"This is real!" She yelled in his ear, as she blocked the clumsy blow he tried to land. "This is not a dream! I suggest you get that through your thick skull, because we gotta figure out what to do, and we can't do that if you're in the magical land of denial!"

She tossed him to the other side of the canoe, then sat back at the front, preparing herself for an attack.

Zuko spluttered, and coughed, and shook the cold water out of his face. "You almost drowned me!" He yelled.

"Relax Blue, I wouldn't have drowned you." Toph scoffed. "Are you done moping?"

"What does it matter to you whether I mope or not!?" Zuko yelled. "And why do you keep saying we!? There is no WE! There was never any we!"

"Of course there's a We." Toph said with a scoff. "We're in this together right?"

She didn't tell him that he was the first person she'd met who wasn't family, working for family, or a pro-bender.

Actually, she wasn't telling him a lot of things. Probably not a good way to start up a friendship.

That, and dunking his face in the water.

"Who else do you think you can tell about this?" Toph asked. "If we don't have each other, we don't have anybody."

"I do fine on my own." Zuko growled.

"Fine by me." Toph shrugged. "But you're missing out on an awesome partnership. I mean, Katara lives a sweet life. It might take a while to get used to, but I think I could live here for a while. But if you're not gonna talk about how we're suddenly members of the water tribe, imagine how confused you'll be in a week when you still don't have any answers, because you wouldn't talk about it with me."

Zuko went quiet for a while. He just sat there at the other end of the canoe, glowering at her.

And you may as well add coercion to the lying and near drowning. Toph considered. _Wow, I am terrible at making friends._

"Let's say that this is actually happening." He began, and Toph had to restrain a snort of disbelief. "What do you propose to do about it?"

Toph shrugged. "Find out who did this to us." She said. "Shake his hand, maybe beat him up, depends on what mood I'm in when we find them. Then I'll see if I can get a cooler body, like maybe a queen somewhere."

Zuko frowned, but nodded thoughtfully. "You think… that someone did this to us?"

"Maybe." Toph leaned forward. "Or maybe we're just not very lucky. But either way, I want to find out why this happened. And if it turns out this happened on purpose?" She slammed her fist into her palm. "Some unlucky dirt sucker is gonna find out what happens when you mess with Toph Be - I mean, with the Blind Bandit."

Zuko nodded. If he caught the second near slip-up with her name, he didn't mention it. "I'm in." He said resolutely.

Toph figured as much. The poor guy just looked so lost, back when he didn't know what to do with his body. All he could think of was fighting the person who annoyed him the most. But now that Toph had somebody else annoying Zuko more than she was…

She could see the wheels in his head spinning.

So he had wheels after all.

"We should find my Uncle." Zuko said. "We were in southern waters before this happened. He'll probably believe it's me, if I tell him something only I would know, and he knows more about spirits than anyone."

"Right." Toph nodded. "How do we find him?"

Zuko raised an eyebrow. Then he looked around, and pointed at something in the distance.

Toph squinted. "What is that?"

"It's smoke." Zuko said. "It'll have come from a Fire Nation ship. My ship, unless there's another one in these waters I don't know about."

"Smoke." Toph had heard about smoke. "Huh. What color is it?"

"That's black."

"Neat."

What was even more neat, was that Toph had made a friend. She'd even beat him up first, and he still agreed to team up! And her mom said you had to be nice to people to be friends with them! Ha!

* * *

Mongke stuffed the other chopstick up his left nostril.

"That's it!" Zuko cheered. "You make the best flamingo-walrus Uncle Iroh!"

"Yes." Said Mongke, who stood on one leg and tried to balance himself on General Iroh's oversized body. "It is one of my proudest. Accomplishments."

How did he let the whelp talk him into this?

"You're amazing!" Zuko was flailing his arms around widely. "Why, if I could balance like that, I would –"

And then Zuko's flailing arms knocked over the tea set. It crashed against the deck, spilling it out its contents around Mongke's feet.

"Whoops." Zuko frowned. "Sorry Uncle, you know how clumsy I am."

"It's quite alright nephew." Mongke said, eager to rest his legs. "I'll just…"

"No!" Zuko yelled, flailing his arms at Mongke. "We're in the arctic! The tea has already frozen! You'll trip, and break your back, and it will be all my fault Uncle!"

Mongke looked down at the deck, and realized that, yes, the tea had frozen.

"This is not a problem." Mongke said, eye twitching. "No, this is not a problem. Not at all. I'll just firebend myself free."

"But Uncle!" Zuko gasped. "This is your favorite sunflower seed oil tea!"

"It has already spilt." Mongke tried to explain patiently. "I'm not going to drink it. As tragic as such a loss is, I will just have to clear a path…"

"That's not what I meant!" Zuko almost cried in genuine distress. "Uncle, you of all people should remember that this type of tea can be… explosive, if heated incorrectly!"

Mongke forgot all dreams of being the Firelord. He forgot about using this gooselemming to be a puppet to retire to the tropics with. He forgot about his men, his past, and his ambitions in life. All he could focus on, in that one moment, was that this was undoubtedly the worst day of his entire life. And if he survived it, he would kill the Firelord's brat.

"I'll go get one of the ice picks!" Zuko said, smiling as if he'd just had a brilliant idea.

"No!" Mongke cried out, but Zuko was already running. "Nephew no! That is a bad idea! Don't you ignore me, you're disfigured not deaf! Prince Zuko!"

And then Mongke realized what a dire situation he was in.

For standing on one foot was causing his abdomen to clench. And thanks to 'Iroh's favorite breakfast', any gas he might pass was as flammable as the tea on the floor beneath him.

Mongke tried to distract himself by uttering the filthiest swear words he had in his mind.

It didn't work.

_'Ptoot'_

Mongke winced at the sound of his gas.

**_KRA-KABOOBOROOOOOOM!_**

Mongke howled in pain as the explosion flung him across the ship.

Everything seemed dazed and blurry and… crispy. Mongke tried to stand, and almost faltered. His arm seemed to be suspended in mid-air. He tried again, and this time his whole body stayed upright… oh, yes, Captain Jee. Captain Jee was supporting him. He was saying something. What was he saying?

"…alright Master Iroh?"

Mongke grimaced, and unclenched his gut. A stream of fire flew out of his rear, but burnt as he was he paid it no mind.

"… Fine."

Captain Jee looked at him warily. Mongke wondered what the look was for. He would be perfectly fine, once he killed the Firelord's brat.

The brat in question ran up the stairs with an ice pick. "I found it Uncle Iroh!" He said with a cheer.

Mongke saw his eyes. His eyes were filled with laugher. His lips twitched. It amused the boy to see him like this, he knew it! The boy was happy for his pain!

Mongke stood with an awful slowness, and prepared to strike.

"Ahoy up there!"

Always! It was always one thing after another!

"Iroh!" Japtain Jee called. "You'll want to look at this!"

* * *

"Are you really sure this is the best idea?" Toph asked.

"Uncle wouldn't hurt a couple of wandering water peasants." Zuko said. "He even has polite conversations with enemy soldiers."

"You sound like you disapprove." Toph noted.

"They're the enemy." Zuko said. "We shouldn't be sitting down and having tea with them."

Toph wasn't sure if she had an answer for that, and she instead looked up onto the ship where Fire Nation soldiers were peering off to the side.

"Ahoy!" Zuko yelled again. "We humbly request an audience with General Iroh of the Fire Nation!"

Someone new looked over the edge, and Toph was slightly surprised. This was a kid about their age, and he had something on his face. It was a different color than the rest of his face (that she could tell; she suspected Zuko might be slightly color blind from being so accustomed to colors). She wondered if he had a tattoo.

Zuko suddenly seemed very angry at this newcomer. "Who are you!?" He snarled.

"I'm Prince Zuko!" The tattooed dude called down. "But the lovely lady down there can call me whatever she wants!"

Toph was blushing fiercely. She was pretty young, but not very pretty. She suddenly realized that she was in a body that could be called very pretty! Some guys might even fall in love with her! They may try to kiss her, or maybe even… hold hands with her.

Toph's blush deepened.

So distracted was she by the latter portion of the sentence, she entirely missed the first part.

That was the part Zuko noticed.

He sputtered indignantly, and managed to choke out; "No you're not!"

Neither of them saw his eyes glimmer with excitement. "Oh? I'm sorry I didn't realize!" He chuckled. "But if I'm not Zuko, then who is?"

Toph perked up. Had she heard that right? Was she imagining things, or did tattoo just imply…

And then a fat old man that was blackened by soot peered over the edge.

"I have no patience for this." He growled, and Zuko – the Zuko in the boat next to her – visibly flinched. "Captain Jee, dispose of these… savages."

_Oh no he didn't!_

"Looks like we gotta cut the reunion short Blue." Toph told Zuko, picking up an oar.

Zuko was too busy staring at the fatman. "That's… Uncle wouldn't do that."

"Take up your stances." Iroh said, gesturing to a bunch of masked firebenders. "Zuko, you too, this could be good practice for you."

"Yeah, maybe not." Toph said, piecing together who fatman and tattoo dude were. "But – quick question – if we're not ourselves, then who's to say they are?"

"Fire already!"

Toph swung the oar. It helped, she thought. Water was much, much too soft for her to bend properly. All she managed was a small splash on the side of the boat, that probably could have been done without waterbending, and the canoe was shoved only slightly our of the way of most of the fire.

Most of it. A strike still managed to hit the center of the canoe, and even Zuko managed to flinch out of his trance, and duck before a fireball hit him straight in his stupid face.

"We gotta get out of here!" Toph yelled. As much as it rankled her to quit a fight, Zuko was out of it, and she really couldn't come up with any good reasons to stay here.

Zuko grabbed the other oar. "You're right!" He said, pointing. "Through there!"

They weaved between a crevice between two icebergs. The fire nation ship didn't even slow down, it simply plowed straight through.

"That's not my Uncle!" Zuko exclaimed, as he tried to put out the fire.

"Thank you Captain Obvious!" Toph yelled back. "Don't mind the fire, just paddle!"

"Why can't you put it out with waterbending?" Zuko roared.

"Because I'm not a waterbender!" Toph snapped back.

"Of course you're not! Life can't ever be that easy can it? It's not like a waterbender who can't waterbend is the most USELESS THING IN THE WORLD!"

"Useless?" Toph spun around in the canoe, the fire casting a raging light over her face. "This coming from the firebender who can't firebend!"

"At least I can fight!"

Toph punched him right in the center of his face. "Oh look, SO CAN I!"

That was the point where they cut their bickering short long enough to notice the approached rapids.

They screamed, and then Toph screamed higher as one of the firebenders managed to get a lucky shot in and lit her one fire.

They shot away from the fire nation battleship, their little canoe travelling the currents like a mouse running from a snake. They weaved in and out of icebergs, relinquishing all control of their feeble vessel in their panic. Zuko leaned over the side of the canoe, feebly trying to splash water onto Katara as she stood in the canoe and tried to get her balance and put out her fire at the same time.

Their canoe capsized. Toph instinctively reached for something, anything. She couldn't swim. Her parents thought her too delicate to learn, so she couldn't swim. She snagged the corner of the canoe, and that's all she could do as she was pulled along.

She was dragged along beneath the water. Gasping for air yielded poor results, and she choked, and gasped in the water. She could feel it filling her throat, she could feel the tiny little water creatures pouring into her lungs. She could feel the coldness of the arctic waters all around her.

_So that's it? You really are just a scared little girl after all?_

She shut her mouth, and gritted her teeth.

_You are Toph Bei Fong! You've never lost yet, and you won't lose to some water!_

With a herculean effort, she hauled herself up to the surface with one arm. As soon as she surfaced she started to cough, and sputter, and get rid of all the water in her lungs, but she couldn't spare time for that. With what little strength she had left, she used her other arm to grab a firm hold over the canoe. Then, and only then when she was secure, she focused her bending inwards, and with a cry of effort, spewed the entire contents of her insides back where they belonged.

It hurt. She felt an ache in her chest like she'd just landed on it after a big fall. Zuko was on the other side of the canoe, and he gripped her hand tightly, as tight as her grip on the canoe.

"It'll be alright!" He yelled over the waves.

She could tell he was lying.

And then she saw the iceburg up ahead, and wished she was blind again.

The canoe struck the iceberg, and dissolved into splinters. She slipped through Zuko's hand before she could strengthen her grip, and she sank again. She sank, unable to grab anything helpful, adrift in the currents that were pulling her down below.

She was cold.

She refused to cry. Let it not be said that Toph died crying.

_You are Toph Bei Fong! You've never lost yet, and you won't lose to some water!_

Toph didn't exhale. She held her breath in, willing her mouth shut, and began to make running motions in the water. She didn't know how people swam, but she could try. She could learn! She would figure this out before it killed her! She extended her sixth sense, trying to see the pattern in the water, trying to figure out how things moved in the water, and how the water moved itself…

She felt something very large in the water.

Two somethings.

And in what little light she had, she saw a sight the Southern Water Tribe had come to fear.

The glinting teeth of a Lion-Seal.

Toph's arms flailed about, but failed to let her swim anywhere. The two large creatures drew closer, and closer, Toph could feel the ripples coming from their approach –

And couched inside them, she could feel another ripple too.

A machete made itself known as the surface light glinted off it. Zuko, his cheeks puffed up full of air, wrapped his arm around a Lion-Seal and slit its throat.

The other Lion-Seal turned, and bagen to attack its wounded comrade as Zuko made his way over to Toph.

He knew how to swim.

Toph couldn't hold it in any longer. She exhaled as Zuko grabbed her around the waist, and felt herself fading away as he swam her up – or down, she couldn't tell the directions any more.

_You're Toph Bei Fong!_

Toph tried to refocus. She extended her senses. Which way was up? That way? Okay, good, we're getting somewhere.

_You've never lost in your life –_

She felt the water filling her brain, she felt her panic beginning to overwhelm her. She felt Zuko kicking next to her, and tried to imitate him, tried to kick like he kicked.

_- and that's not good enough._

They weren't going to make it. She panicked. Toph was panicking. She stopped trying to kick, stopped trying to think, stopped feeling the water filling her skull and her brain.

She surged her first forward, trying to find some solid earth beneath her, trying to make it rise…

Was that… glowing?

Something solid hit them from beneath.

Toph and Zuko gasped for air like fished, breathing in the sweet nectar of life.

Toph vomited up the water in her systems. Then, realizing Zuko was having trouble, forced the water out of him too.

They both sat there, on that iceberg she'd summoned, lying on their backs hand in hand. Their gasps for air grew shorter, fewer, farther between.

Zuko sat up.

"We haven't lost them."

Toph looked up.

The smoke was close. And getting closer.

But she didn't care about her eyes right now. Her fingers were tingling, and it wasn't the frostbite.

She looked down, and asked Zuko; "Is that normal?"

The iceberg they were sitting on – the iceberg Toph had summoned from the depths – there was something inside it. Two somethings. A giant creature, that looked almost like a caterpillar curled up in a crystal caccoon, and a boy. The boy was in a yoga stance, and he was the source of the glowing.

Zuko's breath caught. "It can't be."

He slid down off the dome they were sitting on, and onto the front of the iceberg. "No way. After all this time."

"What's happening Blue?" Toph asked bluntly, sliding down the iceberg.

"Toph!" Zuko caught her on her descent, and spun her around in the air. "You're amazing! You're brilliant! I could kiss you!"

Toph blushed and kicked him in the shin.

"Ow!" He yelped, dropping her.

Toph rubbed her bruised rear, and stood up. "I'm flattered, really." She said. "And you probably deserve it for saving my life, but could you please explain what's going on?"

Zuko smiled like a predator. "This is the Avatar!" He said. "I've been hunting him for two years, but in all of those two years I never had a water bender! Or an ice bender, or an earthbender in a waterbender's body. Whatever! This means I can finally go home! I can finally regain my honor! And I don't even need to fight him, he's already caught!"

There was a huge rumbling splash, and the battleship came into view.

"Yeah, too bad they have more firepower." Toph said, pointing.

Zuko frowned. "No, not now." He muttered. "Not when I'm so close."

He took out his club and machete.

"Are you really gonna hurt you and your uncle?" Toph asked.

"That's not my uncle." Zuko said grimly. "My Uncle has laughter in his eyes, not blood."

Toph put a hand on his shoulder. "And what if your Uncle suddenly gets back to his own body?" She asked gently. "What if you suddenly go back to your old body? We don't know who or what did this yet, it could stop at any second."

Zuko grimaced, and lowered his weapons.

"What we need…" Toph said, looking at the boy in the iceberg. "Is more firepower."

"No!" Zuko whirled around. "He's a hundred years old, and the master of four elements! If you let him go, I might never be able to catch him again!"

"He doesn't look a hundred years old." Toph said. "And dead guys don't have much honor."

Zuko hesitated. And Toph took advantage of that. She pulled her fist back, spun on her heel and struck.

The iceberg shattered.

* * *

Bumi squinted out into the sea of ice.

"General, are you sure we should bother pursuing two harmless children?"

Bumi tried to ignore the argument going on behind him. Captain Jee had finally caught on that Iroh was acting out of character.

"We are hardly pursuing them Captain. It is not like we have anything better to do, and there is no danger in pursuing them. Just a bit of harmless fun to pass the time."

Bumi might have argued the point, but he had a feeling that Mongke would do the exact opposite of anything he said right now, just to spite him.

He had to suppress a giggle at the thought.

"There they are!" One of the skull-faced duck-monkeys under Iroh's command yelled. And he pointed to the boy and the girl.

Bumi wondered what they were doing. It looked like they were arguing, and then the girl punched the iceberg.

Bumi felt the urge to punch an iceberg himself.

It must be very cool.

And her particular iceberg was round, like a marble, or a –

Bumi looked closer.

Was that… who he thought it was, coming out of the iceberg?

Bumi smiled widely.

He was right. HE! WAS! RIGHT! That old stick-in-the-mud Pakku owed him a private beach-house on Ember Island!

The Avatar was back, and it was Aang! It was Aang all along!

And then he turned to Mongke, who was staring over the ship's railing.

"Oh, look Uncle, it's the Avatar." He said nonchalantly.

And then an enormous wave crashed into the ship.

The Avatar was in his full Avatar state! Air whipped around them, as the wave lifted them high over waters and onto the tallest iceberg. The ship perched itself there, and then the iceberg was pushed away, cutting through the ice infested waters like a knife.

When it finally came to a stop, the Avatar had already pulled several lumps of ice into their ship's empty wake, to shield them from view.

"That… was the Avatar." Mongke murmured.

And then Bumi decided to have one more joke at his 'Uncle's' expense.

"I know Uncle!" He snapped his fingers and Mongke turned to him in confusion.

"You can just use your fire jets to fly over the ice and get him!"

From the reports he'd gotten on the villages near Omashu that Mongke had raided, he was a competent firebender but no more than a thug. Bumi was almost certain that he had not, in fact, mastered the art of jet propelled flight.

So, he pushed Mongke off the ship.

And watched him roll down the iceberg.

And into the freezing cold waters.

And he laughed all the while.

"Prince Zuko?" Bumi turned to find Captain Jee staring at him.

"Let this be a lesson to you Captain." He said. "The most dangerous battle is a battle of wits, and you must always have your most dangerous weapon sharpened."

And then Bumi leaped, cackling like a madman (which, in fact, he was. Several eminent psychiatrists could back him up on this) and he leaped from iceberg to iceberg, to be reunited with his old friend Aang.

Or, whoever was in his body.

* * *

There was a thundering sound, a rumbling as though an iceberg was crumbling around him. Sokka looked around in confusion. "What was that?"

Predictably, there was no answer.

He stood in the middle of empty space. He'd been there for quite a while, trying to wake up. Because this had to be a dream, right? He was stranding on some sort of giant white floaty-thing, with weird blue markings on it. The marking on the middle of the floaty-thing reminded him of an eye, and it kept following him, accusingly. Several wavy paths led off the floaty-thing, but stopped abruptly in mid-air.

He stood at the edge of the floaty-thing, contemplating jumping off. If he jumped off maybe he would wake up.

"That was the sound of ice breaking."

Sokka looked around. "Is somebody there?" He asked. "Because I gotta tell you, this is the worst dream ever. No meat, no dad, no fire nation, and no fancy clothes. Whatever I ate last night, I am not eating it again."

The white land bulged and shimmered, and an old man emerged from the ground in front of Sokka.

Sokka eyed him critically, his chin rested on his fist in a thinking pose. He shrugged. "Alright." He said critically. "You are fire nation, and you do have fancy clothes. But I meant fire nation that I could beat up, not an old man. And I wanted to wear the fancy clothes."

"I am avatar Roku." The old man said. "I was the Avatar during the time that Firelord Sozin began the occupation and war against the other nations."

Sokka raised an eyebrow. "Yeeeeeeeeeeah. Definitely two thumbs down for this dream."

"This is no dream!" He felt a slap on the back of his head.

"Ow, hey!" He spun around, and there was some giant lady behind him in a green armor-dress, and Sokka had never realized he wanted to wear an armor-dress so badly, but now that he knew armor-dresses existed he wanted one almost more than he wanted a boomerang!

But he suppressed the thought. Armor-dresses were pretty cool, but they were not manly. And he was A MAN!

"And who are you?" He asked, admiring the cut of her sleeves.

"Avatar Kyoshi." She said. "And we are here to inform you, that you are the new Avatar."

What? "Okay, that is ridiculous dream lady." Sokka said. "I can't even bend. See?" He waved his arms around in the air, flipping and flopping, and swinging around. As he predicted, no elements were moved.

"No one can bend in the spirit world dude." Said a broad-shouldered water tribe warrior sporting a wicked awesome arctic fox-owl poncho.

"Or in a dream." Sokka countered. "And guys, this is definitely a dream. Nowhere but in my dreams could the two of you dress so fabulous."

"Yes she is fabulous isn't she?" Asked a tiny bald girl with blue arrow tattoos, who was toying with the armor-dress girl's hair.

"Got off Yangchen!" The first woman (who was a giant) snapped, shrugging off the smaller girl. "Honestly, every time we do this!"

"The point!" Snapped another man, who was slender and snake-like and very, very Fire Nation. "The point is that you, young man, are the Avatar! And your village is in danger, and needs your help!"

That got Sokka's attention. "What? Okay, tell me how! How's my village in danger! How can I stop it!?"

A polite cough later, and a broad shouldered man with a truly, truly impressive beard raised his hand. "Your village may or may not, in fact, be in danger. Avatar Jafar was merely trying to test your character, and also to convince you to take us seriously."

Sokka rounded on the fire nation man, who simply shrugged and twirled his goatee. "I try to have a little more subtlety than my colleagues."

"Look, you guys are fabulous and all, but I really want to wake up now." Sokka said, backing up away from the other Avatars.

A man who wore the clothes of ancient Northern Water Tribe poets but with the tattoos of the Yangchen lady placed a hand on Sokka's shoulder. "Very well. You're right, we should allow you to wake up, and you will soon. We're simply… taking care of things outside before we send you back. However, could you just answer one question for us?"

A musclebound man who wore clothes and tattoos similar to Yangchen, (Sokka was beginning to suspect them of being an airbenders) stood in front of Sokka and asked him; "If you were the Avatar, what would you do with your power?"

Sokka shrugged. "I'd stop the war."

"How?" Avatar Roku asked.

"By defeating the Fire Nation?"

"So you would attack an entire nation?" Avatar Kyoshi asked.

"A nation full of depraved fire monsters?" Sokka asked. "Yeah, totally."

"They ain't all evil." Avatar Kuruk said. "Some are just… you know… misguided."

Sokka shrugged. "Then I'll let those ones go or something."

There was an almost unanimous frowning.

Then Avatar Yangchen chuckled. "Come on you old fuddy duddies." She said, lightly teasing the others. "He means well. I know he is young, but you were all young once! He's never been outside of his village before, and not for lack of trying either! We all needed time to grow, and I know you look down on me because I'm not as old as the rest of you, but if my vote counts for anything, I say that he has a good heart and we should give it a chance to grow."

"This is the fate of the world we're talking about Yangchen." Avatar Jafar scolded her. "We don't have time for your foolish flights of fancy. We can't wait for him to grow."

"Then we should have let Aang free before we had to deal with an emergency." Yangchen said, allowing a frown to cross her features. She knelt down, and Sokka noticed that a boy – another airbender – was lying on the floor. He was barely a teenager, but the airbender kid looked… sick.

"If Aang were fully connected to the rest of us, he would still have much to learn." Yangchen admonished them. Even Avatar Kyoshi bowed her head in guilt at those words. Yangchen looked each of them in the eyes, her expression stern and forbidding.

Then mirth graced her features again. "Come now, I know Kuruk at least has had to deal with Koh before. Surely we're all aware that this is the best course of action."

Avatar Kuruk nodded. "The kid has a good heart." He agreed. "If he can learn to look outside of our tribe's prejudices, he could be a force for good."

"Um… I'm right here you know." Sokka said, unsure of whether he'd just been insulted or complimented.

"Let's put it to a vote." Avatar Roku said.

And suddenly, Sokka was aware of much more people, with much more colorful costumes.

"In favor?" A good many hands were raised, and Sokka was beginning to suspect something amiss. Alright, his dreams were sometimes weird, but they'd never been this… grandiose.

"Opposed?" Again, several hands were raised.

Sokka wasn't sure whether the in favor votes were more or less then the opposed votes, when their hands went down.

A hush fell over the crowd.

"Well… if our vote counts for anything…"

The Avatars parted, as a young looking man with red robes walked through. His clothes were not fabulous at all… they looked like something a peasant might wear a hundred years ago, and they might have been fire nation red had it not been for the immense amounts of sand and dirt coating the ensemble. The only way he stood out from the others was with his yellow travel sash, where a simple clay teapot was nestled into.

"We vote that if a thief and a liar can change into a good person, then so can a warrior with heartache." The youngest man looked at Sokka and stroked his beard. "After all Sokka… all of your fellow warriors left the tribe long ago. Yet you still stayed, no matter how it stung. Why?"

Sokka felt the ache in his heart whenever he was reminded that he was alone. Then he drew himself to his full, if unimpressive height, and said;

"Being a man is knowing where you're needed the most."

The young man smiled. "Well, right now… you're needed as the Avatar."

**"We will bond with him."**

Said a voice that Sokka was entirely unprepared for. It seemed to come from nowhere, and everywhere, as though it had spoken through his sould and he had heard it with his heart. The strangers vanished, and the eye in the center of the platform he was standing on looked at him.

**"Go."**

One of the waving tendril paths from the platform lead to a giant-sized Sokka. Sokka thought it looked like it was made of some sort of glass. He figured that was where he was supposed to go – to the giant-sized Sokka in a fighting pose.

**"Earth. Fire. Air. Water."**

Sokka realized, as he walked cautiously towards himself, that the voice sounded feminine.

**"Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them. But when the world needed him most, he vanished."**

"Yeah, I know." Sokka said glumly.

**"A hundred years passed and now we have a new Avatar, a Southern Water Tribe warrior named Sokka. And although you have the heart of a warrior, you still have a lot to learn before you're ready to save anyone."**

"Hey!" Sokka whined. "I can hear you, you know!"

**"But I believe, you can save the world."**

Sokka shook his head, and reach out to touch his statue. "That is the last time I eat stewed sea prunes before bed." He muttered.

* * *

**A/N: So. Hello again. Second chapter.**

**In case you were wondering, all of the quotes at the beginning belong to Doctor Who. The Tenth Doctor, in particular. Doctor Who is quite similar to the Avatar series, and not just because of the regenerating heroes. They both have similar messages of trying to find non-violent solutions, and achieving your fullest potential. The Tenth Doctor is my favorite, so his messages will be following our heroes along.**

**This is something I like to do with all of the stories I love. Just switch around the character's personalities to see what will happen. I do this with a dice, so it is completely random, and I get some wonderful stories out of it. However, with this one I decided to put it up on Fanfiction, and switch around the people, not just their personalities.**

**I hope you enjoy! Please do review!**


	3. The Truest Blue

_I'd call you a genius, except I'm in the room._

**Avatar Sokka**

**The Truest Blue**

* * *

Zuko had only ever seen his uncle fight once.

Oh, sure, there had been other fights. Small and extremely one-sided beatings on random muggers who thought the fat old man with a full purse and expensive Fire Nation robes was an easy mark. They barely counted as fight. Who fights someone and then takes them for a cup of tea or a game of pai sho?

There was one time when Uncle went all out. When they were investigating the Northern Air Temple, they'd come across a pair of bandits, who were raiding nearby Fire Nation settlements. Mr. Smeller and the Lady Bee were more competent than a third of the garrison stationed there, and even managed to steal one of the mechanists' fancy new war tanks before War Minister Qin began to take them seriously.

He hired an assassin. This assassin had a deformity running through his chi, which made any fire he tried to bend combust. He lost an arm and a leg as a child, before somehow learning to master his malfunction and transform it into a lethal weapon.

Not only was he a powerful bender, but he was ruthless and cunning. He soon hunted down Smeller and Lady Bee, and he killed them ruthlessly. But he didn't stop there. The bandit pair had a daughter, who probably didn't even know her parents were bandits. When their estate (the bandits had grown quite rich off of Minister Qin's incompetence) was attacked she hid inside of the war tank, and when the assassin returned the tank to War Minister Qin, he dragged her out by her braided hair and tried to kill her.

That was a mistake.

Zuko had never seen his uncle so enraged before. It was like seeing the gentle waves of the open sea transforming into a hurricane in an instant. And a force of nature would have been less frightening than Iroh was! If Ba Sing Seh and the last of the dragons couldn't stand against him, then what chance did this assassin have? His saving grace was that Uncle could be very merciful to a man begging to live on all fours.

Zuko had asked his uncle why he had never used his powers like that before.

Iroh had said; "One does not summon lightning to swat a fly."

Zuko thought about this, as he watched the Avatar in action. As a wave of water lifted the fire nation battleship high enough that it was over the flying monk's head. As the retaliating firebenders couldn't even get their flames past the wall of air in front of him. As shards of ice pinned the firebenders to the deck.

Toph could only stare.

Zuko got out some rope.

"Wow… this is incredible." She said.

Zuko grunted, as the Avatar gestured and the wall of water carried the ship away.

"I mean, I've seen some impressive bending before." Toph said. "Mostly by me of course, and then I wasn't really seeing it…"

Zuko tutted under his breath. "This is the worst rope I have ever seen."

"Do you think I'm pretty?" Toph asked.

Zuko's head shot up. "What!?" He sputtered.

"Am I pretty?" Toph looked at her refection in the water. "I mean, it's not like I have any point of reference for things like that, but you've probably seen girls before haven't you? Objectively, am I pretty?"

Zuko stammered, and tried to look anywhere but where Toph was standing, in an incredibly pretty water tribe girl's body. "Why would you ask that?"

"Oh just… curious." She said shyly.

Then the avatar flew over to them.

Zuko prepared to fight an unstoppable force of nature with nothing but a club (he'd lost the machete to the blubber of a lion seal). But the Avatar simply frowned at him, as if her were a naughty or… disappointing child. Who did the Avatar think he was, grandfather?

"Hi!" Toph stood in front of the Avatar, and while he wanted to scream at her to run, he knew objectively that she'd have a better chance than he did. "My name's Toph. Nice to meet you." She held her hand out to shake and…

… and batted her eyelashes?

And was she biting her lip?

_Oh. Oh Agni._

She was flirting with him.

It seemed to work, as the Avatar suddenly stopped glowing. He fell to the ground, unconscious.

There was a space of silence, where nothing could be heard except the arctic air. And then Zuko had to speak.

"… Were you just flirting with the Avatar?"

Toph was blushing furiously. "No!" She yelled.

"Unbelievable." Zuko bent down and began to tie the Avatar up. "I have to tie the most powerful being in the world up with the worst rope in the world because you woke him up to flirt with him."

"I didn't wake him up to flirt with him!" Toph yelled. "I mean – I wasn't flirting with him! I mean –" She scowled and gave up. "Never mind. What's the deal with the rope?"

Zuko was infinitely grateful for the subject change. "This rope is terrible." He explained. "It's so thin and frayed, I don't even know what it's made of since there's no straw down here. Seaweed maybe? Is this seaweed rope? I don't even know."

Toph pointed to the blue arrows on his head. "Are those tattoos?"

Zuko nodded. "Yes. I think they have some sort of cultural significance to airbenders."

"Does your tattoo have cultural significance?" Zuko looked at her with surprise. What tattoo was she… "That awesome fire tattoo your body has on its face."

Zuko fought down the flash of panic that always came with the thought of his scarring. He distracted himself with the knots before the smell of burning and the image of a hand over his eye overwhelmed him. He'd avoided mirrors for two years, but sometimes he'd catch a glimpse of himself in some water, and now… now he'd seen what he was like without water in the way. He'd seen his scar like other people had seen it.

"That wasn't a tattoo." He said, through painfully clenched teeth. Why was this girl so irritating?

He finished tying up the knots, and sat back hoping they would hold. Toph seemed to be considering what she said next. He steeled himself, and hoped that she wouldn't still hound on his 'tattoo'.

"What happened with the colors back then?" She asked.

Zuko frowned. "What do you mean?"

"His tattoos." She said. "They… I don't think they changed color exactly but…"

"Glowing." Zuko nodded. "His tattoos and his eyes glowed."

"Katara?"

Both of them looked at the Avatar. He was waking up. "Katara, what's going on?" The Avatar winced then looked down at his ropes. Then he looked at Zuko.

Toph was looking at him as if she'd done something wrong, but didn't know what, and needed him to tell her. The Avatar, Zuko was pleased to see, was looking at him like he was the embodiment of all that was frightening in the world.

Zuko looked at them both imperiously. He was, after all, a prince.

"You!" Zuko was temporarily baffled when the Avatar made a strange flopping motion, like a fish flopping around in dry land, that somehow managed to get him upright on his feet. "Who are you are you and why do you look like me?"

Zuko drew himself up to the fullest height his body would allow. "I am Zuko! Prince of the Fire Nation! And you're my prisoner, Avatar!"

The Avatar gave a scream of panic. Zuku smiled, as he realized the Avatar had realized the full seriousness of his situatio-"

"My boomerang! Where is it!? What did you do with it!?"

…

…

…

"What?" Zuko asked.

"My boomerang." The Avatar gestured to the pouch on Zuko's back. He'd been wondering what to call the strange curved bone knife that was stored there. Except, the holster was now empty. "I swear, if you've touched my boomerang with your filthy fire nation hands…"

"Why would I touch your… boomerang." Zuko sneered at the bizarre name. "I must have lost it in the rapids."

"The rapids!?" The Avatar squeaked.

Zuko sighed. "What's your name?"

"I'm Sokka." The Avatar said, squinting suspiciously at Zuko. "That's my body you're wearing." He looked over at Toph. "And since Katara would never keep quiet for more than ten seconds, I'm guessing your some sort of fire nation spy too?"

Toph put her hands on her hips and smirked. "Earth Kingdom, actually." She said. "Nice to meet you."

"Yeah, well, I'm not." Sokka said, with a frown.

"That's understandable." Toph said. "This is your sister's body, right?"

"That's right." Sokka said sternly. Zuko pretended he was as oblivious as Sokka was to Toph's look of disappointment. "So you better keep it in good condition. I don't want her moaning at me if I get her body back and her hair loopies are twisted in a knot or something."

"Sure." Toph shrugged. "So, how does it feel to be the Avatar?"

Zuko decided to intervene. "Don't ask the prisoner any more questions!" He snapped.

"You got to ask him questions." Toph pouted.

"That's 'cause I'm in charge here!" Zuko said.

"Really? Could you spare a moment boss man?"

Zuko spun around at the sound of his voice – his real voice. He expected to come face to face with his real face – but instead he found a nose the size of his head. And below that, long rows of teeth. And angry, glaring yellow eyes, attached to a mountain of white fur.

The sky bison breathed hot air into his face.

Zuko's body, sitting nonchalantly on top of the bison, waved at the three of them. "Hello kids! Let me introduce you to my old buddy Appa!"

* * *

In the end, Captain Jee had to enlist most of his men to haul Iroh out of the water. By the time they dragged him over the side of the ship, he was shivering from the cold, and frost was forming on his beard despite the blankets draped over him.

Things… were not adding up.

Jee looked once more at the huddled figure of the General. He was drinking some warm tea, while directing the crew to melt the iceberg.

The General Iroh Jee knew wouldn't even be chilled. When they were sailing North to get to the Northern Air Temple, Iroh had even gone swimming in the arctic waters for an extended period, and tried to get the firebenders on the crew to join him. He knew a special technique to keep himself warm.

The Iroh huddling before him… seemed to have forgotten that technique.

As well as the technique some firebenders used to propel themselves through the air. True, the General was more rotund these days but he could have at least attempted it while Zuko was throwing him overboard.

And why had Zuko thrown him overboard anyway? He knew that spoiled brat had no respect for his uncle, but he'd never seen such blatant mockery before.

Something was up.

And nothing happened on Jee's ship without him finding out about it.

There was a crack like thunder, and enough of a path had been melted from the iceberg that the ship was able to grind its way down and back into the water.

Jee winced at the sound of metal against solid ice.

As soon as the ship was seaborn again, he slipped into command. "All engineers below deck, begin assessing the damages! I want any holes patched immediately, and the engine repaired as soon as we can after that!"

The crew began their work, running down into the ship like they've had two years of practice doing. Jee would have joined them, but he hesitated. People of fire didn't wait to do what they were told. They made things happen. The question was, should he confront Iroh about what was happening, or should he take the subtle approach and wait to see for himself?

Then Iroh raised his head. "Captain Jee… while we were suspended upon the iceberg, did you see the small village south of here?"

"Yes General Iroh." Jee answered respectfully.

"That is our new destination."

Jee nodded. The village was the only inhabited place for miles. It was no Fire Nation outpost, but the General was charming, and they might be able to get help repairing their ship. No… Jee reconsidered. The General thought in terms of people. The village would be the most likely destination for Zuko to head towards, or for the Avatar. Either way it was a well-thought out tactical decision.

Still…

Jee decided to take the subtle approach.

"Why are we heading there sir?" He asked.

The frostbite on Iroh's beard began to melt away.

"Because it has been some time since I last sacked a village." He said with a grim smile.

Jee did not consider himself an easy man to scare.

But those words… should never come out of the lips of a man like Iroh.

* * *

It would be foolhardy in the extreme for a lanky boy armed only with a club he didn't know how to use properly, to fight against two master earthbenders in command of elements not their own, a trained water tribe warrior in command of all the elements, and an angry adult air bison.

So naturally, Zuko gave it his best shot for a full five seconds before he was knocked unconscious and Sokka began to tie him up.

"My name's Bumi by the way." Bumi said, as Sokka did his thing. "King of Omashu, world's greatest earthbender, old friend of the Avatar."

"Sweet." Toph shook his head. "The name's Toph. Undefeated champion of Earth Rumble Six, world's greatest earthbender, and new friend of the guy we're tying up."

The pair of them glared challengingly at each other.

Bumi giggled. "Oh, I like you."

Sokka finished with his knots – being Water Tribe ment they were far superior to the knots Zuko had used, even if the rope was poor. "I'm Sokka." He said. "I'm… nobody special really." He shrugged. "Uh… nice to meet you your majesty. Sorry you had to get stuck in a firebender's body."

Bumi waved his apology off. "Ah, it's no problem at all. I'm a hundred and twelve years old you know, it does me good to be young again. This kid clearly keeps himself in shape!" He patted Zuko's face affectionately.

And suddenly his eyes glowed.

"Glowing!" Toph pointed out immediately. "His eyes are glowing!"

Sokka was about to snark something about being the captain of the Obvious ship, when suddenly Bumi stood ramrod straight, and looked around as if he was seeing things around him for the first time.

"I… I'm me again!"

Sokka did not need to be a genius to know what those words implied.

Whoever was there hiding behind his face, Zuko's body stretched its hands out and lit fires in the palms of his hands. "I'm me again!" He laughed.

Unsure of what to do, Sokka quickly stepped up and head-butted Zuko's body.

It stumbled, his feet catching itself and getting into a ready stance for a fight…

One foot stepped on Sokka's body.

His eyes glowed again, and he stumbled away from the tied up kid.

"Wow." Zuko's body said, reaching up to the forehead. "All of a sudden, I feel the same way as I felt when I became King of Omashu."

Sokka… could not even imagine what that meant.

"What did you do, head-butt the king?" Toph asked.

"Nope." Bumi said, shaking his head. "Head-butted his daughter. It was a whirlwind romance."

What.

Sokka facepalmed. "Okay, never mind that for now. Your eyes glowed for a moment, and after that it seemed like Zuko was back in his body!"

"Really?" Bumi raised an inquisitive eyebrow and leaned close to Zuko. "iiiiiiiiinteresting. So how do you know…" He spun around and pressed his face into Sokka's. "That I'm not still him!?"

"Because Zuko doesn't have your sense of humor." Toph said sagely. Sokka didn't know Zuko as well as she seemed to, but he nodded all the same. He didn't get a 'chuckles' vibe from the guy.

"Eh, true." Bumi said, frowning speculatively at the unconscious prince. "So, it seems that contact with someone in your body, gets you to switch back to normal. But… you can also switch back to strange?" Bumi chuckled. "Not that I'm ungrateful to be back in this body."

"Hey, what's wrong with my body?" Sokka pouted.

But it still didn't make sense. Sokka frowned down at his body, no doubt forming bruises from the one-sided fight the fire prince inside had put it through. He'd touched the body before, while he was tying him up. No doubt Zuko himself, had also touched him when the reverse was true. So why hadn't Sokka returned to his old body?

… Not that he wasn't grateful that the prince of the most evil nation of earth wasn't also the Avatar. But Sokka was a man of logic. Rationality. He needed answers. He needed the truth of what was behind this.

"So we can get back to our old bodies?" Toph asked.

"Maybe." Bumi shrugged. "It worked with Zuko. But it didn't work with Sokka for some reason."

Sokka was gratified to have someone around who thought on the same wavelength as he did. "I think… it's because I'm in the Avatar's body." He said. "I had a dream before I woke up – or at least, I thought it was a dream. There were all these other people… I think they were the previous Avatars."

"Was Aang there?" Suddenly, Bumi was pressing himself against Sokka's face, giving him a close up view of Zuko's scar.

"Yeah, but… he kind of wasn't." Sokka backed away. "He was there, but I didn't speak to him. He looked sick. I think the airbending girl, Yanseng? She said he wasn't fully connected to the rest of them."

Bumi snapped his fingers. "That's it then!" He said. "Aang's not home at the moment, so the past Avatars need someone else to do his job! They aren't going to let you switch bodies if they need to conduct another job interview!"

That was so massively unfair! Not that he wanted Zuko to be the Avatar, but the Fire Nation prince got to switch out, and he didn't? There was nothing he could do about it, but he really wanted to at least have a good mope.

"So the Avatar did this?" Toph asked, mulling it over in her head. "They figured Aang was sleeping for too long, so they scrambled everybody's bodies around and hoped for the best?"

"No." Sokka shook his head. "I don't think so. It sounded like someone else did this, someone the Avatars have dealt with before."

"Did they drop a name?" Bumi asked.

Sokka scratched his head. "Well see… the thing is, I thought it was a dream, and I was really paying more attention to the fancy outfits they were wearing…"

"You forgot, didn't you?" Toph frowned.

"I'll remember soon!" Sokka declared. He tapped his head assuredly. "It's all in here somewhere! Don't worry, I'll remember eventually."

Toph rolled her eyes, then focused on Bumi. "Say, how did you know the Avatar's name, anyway?"

Sokka raised an eyebrow at Bumi. That was a perspicacious question.

"Like I said, I'm an old friend of his." Bumi said, his mad wide grin softening into something more serene. "I'm a hundred and twelve years old. Back when I was a kid, I knew Aang. We had the most fun together… a couple of days before Sozin's Comet came, and all of the Airbenders were killed, some acolytes came looking for him. They told him he was the Avatar, and he'd ran away. I didn't know where he went. I thought he'd definitely come back – Aang may need some space to get his head together from time to time, but he always did the right thing in the end. And now I know why he didn't return – somehow, he got trapped inside an iceberg!"

"Well, now we have to find him, and get him back in his body." Sokka said, slamming his fist into his palm. "That way I can get back into my body, and he can save the world!"

"Yeah, that's great." Toph mumbled. She was clearly distracted by something.

He followed her gaze.

"So, what do we do with this guy then?" He asked, tapping Zuko gently. There was no glowing, and he was still in the avatar's body.

"Take him along!" Bumi said, obviously delighted at the idea of having the crazy prince of the crazybenders joining their merry little… team? Friendship? Rebellion? Was that what the three of them were now?

"We can't take him along!" Sokka protested. "He's fire nation!"

"I agree with the geezer." Toph opined. "He's a bit of a grouch, but he can be okay."

Sokka didn't have much friends. There wasn't anybody around his age in the south pole, except for his sister. But he could see that Toph was already friends with the prince. Looking at Bumi he saw… a spark of intelligence? That was the same look his dad had just before he got a crazy brilliant idea. Except for the thing he was doing with his eyebrows.

That shouldn't be physically possible.

"You haven't even gotten to know him!" Bumi said, patting Sokka on the back. "Give him a chance."

"He did help break you out of the iceberg to fight the actual crazy firebender." Toph said, pointing to the distance.

Sokka didn't realize that Zuko had helped him break out of the iceberg. Why would he break him out just to tie him up afterwards? He was about to concede that Toph had a bit of a point, when he followed where she was pointing. She was pointing to the smoke of a firenation ship.

Sokka had vague recollections of dealing with a firenation ship. It wasn't him that dealt with it of course, but the other Avatars, who of course weren't bothered by something that small when they were busy interrogating the new Avatar. He only vaguely remembered placing it on top of an iceberg.

So the smoke coming from the engines definitely should not have been moving.

In particular, it should not have been moving south.

"It's heading towards my village!" Sokka realized with a cry of alarm.

Toph peered at the smoke. "Oh!" Her eyes widened. "It's moving! Sorry, I'm used to not using my eyes."

Bumi stroked his chin. "You think you can get your Avatar on?" He asked.

"Yeah, just glow it up and toss them onto another iceberg!" Toph nodded.

"Alright." Sokka nodded. "You're right. Time to go Avatar on them." He settled into a fighting stance, waved his arms, and yelled; "AVATAR HO!"

…

There was a distinct lack of glowing.

Sokka shook his arms and tried again. "Avatar on! It's Avatar Time! I call upon the power of the Avatar!"

And still nothing.

Toph was beginning to giggle.

"Come on guys!" Sokka whined to the Avatars of days past. "I thought you guys were on my team! We had that whole interview process! Okay, here's the deal; I'm gonna count to three, and then we're gonna take out some fire nation trash!"

He was aware that he looked utterly ridiculous as he made waving motions with his arms. "One… two… three!"

"… Three!"

"I said three guys, that was your cue!"

"Wow." Toph was snorting behind her hand. "The Fire Nation doesn't stand a chance against you."

"Maybe it only works when my life is in danger." Sokka said, frowning at Toph. "Quick, throw an ice boulder at me."

On second thought that was probably not his best idea.

Before he could retract that comment, Bumi laid a hand on his shoulder. "I don't think that's how the Avatar State works." He said calmingly. Sokka was surprised that Bumi could sound calm… he'd been so erratic for most of the time he'd known him.

"You see, the Avatar State is like falling from a really, really long way up from the lowest point you can find, and then falling back down again with you family and friends joining in." Bumi continued, sagely. "You have to clear all of your chakras, and be one with both yourself, and the earth you intend to land on… except, you know, not shmushed into the earth. Just one with it."

Sokka took a second to contemplate this quasi-mystical drivel. And only a second.

"That's ridiculous and doesn't explain anything." He said with a straight face.

"Look, at least you're the Avatar." Toph said, shrugging. "You can bend all four elements, at least one of them ought to work for you."

"Yeah well…" Sokka's arms weaved like a cobra weasel. "I'm not feeling any avatar mojo." He shrugged helplessly. "I've never even understood how Katara does it. All that nonsensical 'feeling the connections in things' and 'directing to flow of the currents' and 'being the wave'. What does it all even mean?"

"It means when we get through this I'm gonna be putting you through the bending work-out of your life." Toph snarled. "I get that you've never been a bender, but you're a bender now!"

"With no training." Bumi cut in. "Still, the previous Avatars seem to think he's the man for the job. So, what are you gonna do Sokka?"

"What?" Toph and Sokka asked in tandem.

"The Avatar spirit doesn't choose just anyone." Bumi said. "Now, there's a fire nation ship headed in the way of your village. Their firebenders aren't masters, but they're not untrained either. Forget about you being the Avatar. You're the only hope your village has. Focus on that, and tell me how you're gonna save them."

Sokka ran his hand over his bald head. This was a test. Bumi was testing him! Was he insane? Oh, wait, no, of course he was insane. "If you have another idea I'd love to hear it!" Sokka said. "But that's a fire nation warship! With firebenders! I've got you, Toph, and me, and the three of us aren't good enough! I can't just save the day, I need more firepower, I need a plan –"

Sokka paused.

And he smiled.

He'd come up with a plan.

And as he mapped his plan out to Toph and Bumi, he felt fairly reassured by the growing respect in Toph's eyes, and the look of approval on Bumi's face.

* * *

Lesson One: Bumi is a lying liar.

Toph learned this after Sokka had finished outlining his plan. They'd all hopped on to Appa, who Bumi promised would fly. Sokka took the reins like Bumi told him, he yelled 'Yip Yip' despite how embarrassing that was, and Appa took to the air.

Only to collapse into the water the next second.

Toph was looking forward to flying. Hence, Bumi is a lying liar.

Lesson Two: Bumi is a sneaky old trickster.

This was evident, because when Appa swam to the shore and dropped the three of them off, it was Toph who ended up carrying Zuko. How did that happen? One minute Bumi was claiming to be an old man with a bad back, and the next he was skipping merrily ahead like a three year old while Toph followed behind him, trying not to collapse.

When this was all over and they had their bodies back, Toph was so looking forward to teaching him who the world's real greatest earth bender was.

Lesson Thee: Royalty is full of crafty lying liars.

She knew this, because Zuko was only pretending to be unconscious.

She decided that she wanted to be royal when she grew up. They had all the sneaky fun.

Katara was older than her, and she didn't spend all her time polishing her nails like some girls she knew, so she was fairly strong. Probably stronger than Toph's younger body was. However, Toph worked out; did actual earth-bending style strength training. And she had a lower center of gravity. Katara bent like a blade of grass, and with that much weight up top she was getting close to tipping over.

Rather harsh lessons, but she never liked it when her teachers were patronizing, and she learned quickly.

"I know you're awake Blue." She muttered.

Zuko stayed silent.

She put him down on the ground. "Let me be clear on this." She told him. "When I was a blind earth bender, I learned to see using the vibrations through the earth. The vibrations of people's heartbeats in particular. And people's heartbeats change when they're lying, when they're asleep, when they're feeling different emotions."

"And even if I weren't a water bender, even if I couldn't sense your heartbeat change and your blood beating differently, I can still feel your pulse because I'm carrying you. When I say I know you're awake I KNOW YOU'RE AWAKE! So quit pretending, because if I have to drag your blue rear end any further, I'm gonna drag it in the direction of the water!"

Zuko cracked his eyes open, and met her glare with a blue eyed grimace of his own. "Do you always drown people when you don't get your way?"

Toph smirked. "Nope. I just threaten to drown them."

Zuko muttered something about his sister.

Toph giggled. "Sorry Blue. But being pushy is as new to me as being able to see. I like it, and we don't really have time for kiddie gloves. So here, let me cut your legs free, and we'll be on our way."

She tried to act casual as she took out the knife Bumi had given her. She tried to act like she didn't pity him. She'd been in his position before; she'd been trapped in her own mind, unable to think about being someone different then what her parents told her she was. She knew that she wouldn't have wanted pity, and more than he probably did.

But it was true. She didn't have time for kiddie gloves. She didn't have time to liberate her first human friend from acting how he thought a fire nation prince should act. She needed him to trust her as much as he could, because she could see him clearly. And even the real him hiding underneath the fire nation prince didn't trust easily.

"Why?" He asked, as she kneeled down began awkwardly cutting the ropes binding his feet.

"Why what?" She asked.

"Why are you untying me?" He asked. "And why did you turn me into the Avatar? I… whose side are you on anyway?"

"Ya know, I'm glad I used to be blind." Toph said. "You people with eyes see the strangest things. Like 'sides'. What's that about?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "We're friends, aren't we?"

"Are we?" Zuko asked, in a low growl. "All you've managed to do so far is half drown me and threaten me, and let the Avatar I've worked to catch for two years escape."

Her jaw dropped. "Seriously? Two years? What, did you find a lion turtle at the end of a rainbow and decide to go for broke?"

He glowered. He actually glowered at her!

She smirked, and with a snap finished cutting through the ropes. "I've seen you fight well enough to know, that you could probably take me out with just your legs free, if you took me by surprise and I was holding something in my hand." She turned the machete around and offered him the hilt. "Just hear me out?"

He said nothing.

"I'm your friend." Toph explained. "And I'm trying to be a good one, but the only friends I've ever had before are some badger moles and some stinky old body builders who wanted to beat me up. So maybe I'm doing some things wrong, but I thought you were the kind of person who'd want to help kids in trouble."

He was staring at her intently now. That was a good sign… probably.

"The crazy fire bender guy in your uncle's body, is headed towards Sokka's village. We think the villagers are in danger. Even the kids. Now Sokka – he doesn't trust you. He thinks you're his enemy."

"I am." Zuko said.

"Yeah, I guess you are." Toph shrugged. "But he has a plan to save them." It was a good plan. For the first time in her life, Toph was essential to someone's plan. He didn't doubt her one bit. He needed a job done, and he told her it was her job to do it, and it just felt so very good to be needed by someone.

"And you want me to follow the plan?" Zuko asked. She caught a dangerous look in his eyes.

"No." Toph said. "The plan doesn't involve you at all, and I want you to be involved. Sokka doesn't trust you. He wants to keep you tied up for the whole plan, but I think you can help. I think you want to help, because you're not the type of guy who'll leave a whole village to burn."

"You don't know me at all." Zuko hissed. "You've only known me for half a day." And now Toph was beginning to get a little scared. But she wouldn't show it.

"I know that if you touch your body, you'll switch back into it." That startled Zuko, but Toph suppressed the urge to smirk. "That wasn't a dream, when you woke up in your own body. Bumi touched you while you were tied up, and you switched. The only reason Sokka didn't switch into his body, is because he's the Avatar now. He didn't want you to know this, his plan was for Bumi to keep away from you until he led the village to safety, and we'd bring you with us to the mainland."

Zuko was up in an instant, the knife in his hands expertly cutting through the ropes that bound them. By the time Toph had stood up in shock, Zuko had the knife to her throat.

_Don't show fear. Nobody is allowed to tell you how to feel._

She smirked at him. "You wouldn't." She said. "I've done nothing but help you."

"You don't know me." He hissed. "You tried to drown me."

"I am your friend." Toph insisted.

"You're trying to manipulate me." Zuko said. "I don't know much about friends, but they don't do that."

"I don't know much about friends either." Toph considered, as he watched his expression grow gradually angrier. "Maybe I'm bad at being a friend. But that's not the point. The point is…"

"Kids are in danger." Zuko snapped. "That's the point."

He turned and tucked the knife into his belt. "Don't mistake me for one of them." He said.

Toph smirked.

"Stop smiling." Zuko's back was still turned. Well well, he was more perceptive than she'd given him credit for.

Bumi popped up on top of an ice archway ahead. "Hey whippersnapper!" He yelled, seemingly unconcerned with Zuko's freedom. "The thing is here! I found the Thing!"

"I'm right behind ya geezer!" Toph yelled back.

Zuko watched the man in his body disappear again. "And you said that's Bumi?" He asked.

She nodded.

"The king of Omashu?"

She raised an eyebrow. "He did mention being a king, but I thought that was just Bumi being Bumi." She joked.

He nodded, seriously. "And if I come into contact with him, I'll return to my body?"

"That's what Bumi and Sokka think." Toph said. "And I get the impression that they're both pretty smart."

Zuko grunted. "If they were smart, they wouldn't have trusted you to keep me tied up." Zuko all but growled. "I won't make the same mistake."

Toph shrugged, and he smile widened. Zuko was pretty cool when he tried to be!

* * *

Things were finally looking up for Mongke.

This village was more poorly defended than any in the earth kingdom. A small wall and a poorly built tower constructed by some sort of flimsy powder that melted into water in his hand. That was all that separated him from the village. There weren't even any warriors to bar their way. Just women and children.

Helpless. Fragile.

Glorious.

Still, he'd pretended to be Iroh for this long. Why not continue the charade? He spread his arms wide dramatically, as if he were in the theater. "Where!? Is! The! Avatar!" He yelled.

The villagers crowded together, fear radiating off them. It sent shivers up his spine, like he was hunting fox rabbits in the countryside again.

An old lady stepped forward (and he began counting the ways he could kill her, with or without the use of his fire). "There is no Avatar here." She said, sternly.

"Oh no?" Mongke sneered. "The Avatar has been spotted nearby. How can we know he's not here without searching your village?"

The elderly crone stood aside and gestured to the huts, inviting him to search as he pleased. The other villagers began to back away, frightened.

This was just pathetic. They were practically groveling before him, and still not a warrior in sight. There was no challenge here, merely the terror of the defeated. The Firelord was an utter fool, if he didn't realize they could capture this land for the Fire Nation. Then again, why would the Fire Nation want this land? It was quite possible the small huts would look even more pathetic with the comically over sized Fire Nation banners draped over them.

He glared at the old crone. "I think you're hiding something from me."

"I am not." The wrinkled baggage replied.

"I think you're…" He didn't get to finish. A ball of that strange white powder hit him on his shoulder plate.

Dusting it off, he sent a smile at the children. This was perfect. Their mothers pulled them together (all quaking in terror) but one mother was too slow. And one little girl had an impressive throwing arm.

He caught the ball of powder. And it melted into water in his hands.

"Why would I waste my time searching your pathetic huts?" He asked the crone, who was for the first time showing signs of terror on her own face. Good. "You will tell me where the Avatar is, or I will start killing your people until you do."

"We don't know anything." The crone was shaking. "There is no Avatar here."

Mongke looked at Captain Jee, and nodded towards the brat who'd tossed the ball. "Kill the girl."

The mother screamed and ran. The others picked up their children and followed her.

Captain Jee was hesitating.

Mongke threw a firewall that seared through the huts in its path and frightened the villagers like fox rabbits being guided towards hunters. Iroh's body was truly incredible, despite the portliness. He'd never felt so POWERFUL!

The girl was scared, but she threw another snowball.

Mongke blasted it out of the sky with a laugh. "You're going to need something deadlier than that!" HE laughed.

And then something hard hit him in the back of the head.

He spun, a sudden dizziness overtaking him. While he stumbled the crone propelled herself forward and wrapped a cloth around his neck. She pulled hard, with surprisingly powerful arms, and suddenly Mongke was losing oxygen.

"Run!" She heard her yelled.

He wanted to run, but she had his neck. How was he supposed to run?

Then the dizziness stopped, and he sat up. How did he get on the ground? Captain Jee was restraining the crone. "Captain!" He snarled. "How could you let someone strike me from behind?"

"I was too distracted with the little girl you ordered me to kill!" Captain Jee snarled back.

Mongke spun around. Where was that girl anyway? Where were the rest of the villagers? They were all…

They were all pushing their children onto a Sky Bison.

A genuine sky bison.

Mongke was not what you'd call a studious man, but he knew his steeds. He knew every animal one could possibly ride one. And never mind the fact that they were as extinct as the air benders, that was a sky bison.

And in front of him…

Was the boy in the iceberg. Holding a strange knife in one hand, and an ornate staff in the other.

"The Avatar!" Mongke frowned. He could attack him but…

There was a sudden chill in his spine.

He turned to the other fire benders on his crew. "Well, what are you waiting for?" He asked the skull-faced goons that were counted among his crew. "Take the Avatar!"

The hesitated, but Mongke knew he was more frightening that any other man except for Iroh. And he was in Iroh's body. The five fire benders charged the avatar.

He felt confident at first. The Avatar even looked nervous. However, Mongke didn't notice the sky bison turned slowly as the fire benders approached. When they got near enough, he slapped his tale into the ground, stirring up a storm. The white powder erupted into the air, engulfing the fire benders.

For a moment, Mongke was blinded too.

Then he heard the yell of panic.

Fire started erupting in the blinding whiteness. The sound of metal clashing on metal could be heard. A silver glint spun through the air, and the muted sound of bodies falling could be heard.

When the powder settled, there was only one figure standing. The Avatar lightly brushed the power off his shoulders and bald head, staring at Mongke. "That's right." He said with a confident grin. "I'm that good."

Then the powder finished settling, and Mongke realized that he could see the soldier's bodies and armor poking out from their places in the ground.

The Avatar stood in a dramatic pose. "I am the Avatar!" He declared to Mongke. "You want a piece of me, feel free to come get it!"

Mongke almost wet himself.

But he quickly blamed it on Iroh's old body, and grabbed the old crone. He lit a fire under her face. "Stay back, or the lady dies!" He yelled.

"No!" The Avatar lunged forward, throwing his strange knife.

But the knife was poorly balanced, and it spun far to the right of him. Mongke sneered, and brightened the fire in his palm. "Not another step or she dies!" He yelled, halting the Avatar in his tracks.

"General Iroh!" Mongke turned to face his captain, and saw the glint of silver. Eyes wide, he tilted his head back and the knife passed by. How in the world had the knife come back? Was there someone behind him who had caught the knife and thrown it for a return? Was it some airbending trickery?

He followed the knife as it flew past him… and into the hands of the Avatar who had closed the space between them.

"LEAVE HER ALONE!"

It was a roar like that of a lion bull, and if that wasn't enough to shock Mongke into letting go, the Avatar's swing of his knife was. He winced and withdrew his hand, but obviously the knife was not designed for cutting, nor for being wielded as a club. Mongke lashed out with a fire kick to the boy's stomach.

The Avatar rolled quite a distance away, dropping his weapons. Mongke was surprised. Why was the Avatar using only his weapons? Why wasn't he bending?

Mongke grinned. Why wasn't he bending?

"Tired from tossing my boat around boy?" He asked, his confidence returning to him.

In the corner of his eye, he saw the crone beating a hasty retreat. He launched a fireball at her.

"NO!"

The Avatar had grabbed his closest weapon – the staff – and leaped in front of her, protecting her from the blast with his own body. But he didn't try to bend the fire away. Mongke laughed as the boy rolled around on the ground, trying to put out the flames.

Then he rose up, wreathed in smoke. He tore off his shirt, full of holes, and took an ostrich horse stance, pointing his staff at Mongke.

"Heh, maybe you aren't the Avatar." Mongke chuckled. "You don't seem to be able to bend one element, let alone four! You're pathetic."

The boy visibly winced, but he rallied. "At least I don't attack old ladies when their backs are turned." He growled. "You're spine's already like a limp noodle, so why would I need to bend anything else? I don't need elements to help me fight a coward."

Mongke had been called many things in his life.

Never coward.

He forgot fire, and charged the Avatar with his bare hands.

The avatar ran to meet him, and swung his staff.

It quickly became apparent that the avatar had no idea how to use the staff though. He wielded it like a club, with absolutely no defense. Mongke quickly worked out a strategy of blocking the staff attacks with one hand, and using his freed hand to knock the Avatar around.

Punch to the gut, punch to the ribs, uppercut, kick his shins for a change, another to the ribs, backhand, downward slam, Mongke laughed, and he laughed, and he picked up the exhausted Avatar by his collar and flung him away.

"With you as my prize, I'll become the Firelord in no time!" Mongke boasted.

Then the crone reappeared, leveling a shovel at him.

He laughed. "Hiding behind grandma boy?" He asked.

"You have no idea." The Avatar muttered.

"It won't save you." Mongke smiled. "Nothing can save you. You rose from the ice, only to find your doom waiting for you."

_*crack*_

"I am General Iroh." A ruse, but a useful ruse. "I have razed the Earth Nation, and laid siege to Ba Sing Seh's walls. You are just a boy."

_*crack*_

"A boy hiding behind an old lady's skirt." Mongke sneered, lighting a fire in his palm. "But all you've accomplished is ensure I will kill her first."

_*crack!*_

The Avatar was smiling.

Mongke looked down. His last few footsteps had been followed by an ominous cracking noise. As it turned out, he was standing right in the middle of an increasingly widening crevice in the ice.

"What?" He asked, stupidly.

The Avatar stood, leaning on his staff for support.

"This is the part where you run back to your ship." He said cheekily. "And tell your bosses that the Southern Water Tribe is not up for grabs. This is the part where you order your men to fun away, and they never trust you again. This is the part where you realize you're out of your league."

_*Crack-A-Boom!*_

The ice erupted to Mongke's left. The crevice widened, forming a gap between him, and his two prey. More powder filled the air, someone ran along ahead of it. That someone was the water tribe girl from earlier, in a stance Mongke recognized from earth benders. She thrust her fists out, and the crevice widened some more, allowing something large and dark to emerge from the mists.

A flare shot out, and Mongke deflected it with a deft palm strike.

The looming shape before him was another fire nation ship.

And at his helm, holding a flare gun, was a figure that would haunt his nightmares.

His new nephew Zuko.

Cackling. Like. A. Madman.

"What took you so long?" The Avatar yelled at him.

"This ship has a lot of weapons!" Zuko yelled, picking up a crossbow. "We had to get all of them!"

Mongke's eyes widened, and he launched a stream of flame at Zuko… which promptly faded into nothingness.

Zuko was standing in the Firefly stance.

The stance he'd just learned this morning.

The stance which was supposed to help meditation, to put out small fires or light something small like a tea kettle or a chimney.

It was not a stance that lent itself to putting out a master fire bender's fire.

Not unless he was much, much more powerful than the fire bender in question.

And the only reason Mongke was damp, was because Iroh's body had poor bladder control.

The water tribe boy leaned over the side of the ship, and threw out a net. The five unconscious fire benders were caught, and dragged into their stolen fire nation ship.

"General!" Captain Jee was yelling from the gangplank. "General, they're one a collision course! We have to get out of here!"

And that was when he saw that the water tribe girl had carved to crevices out of the ice. The first one was merely a crevice, to separate him from the Avatar.

The second crack was rapidly filling with water. It was that crack the ship was sailing on. And it was that crack that was currently opening directly underneath their own ship.

Mongke ran for the gangplank. "Start the engines!" He yelled.

The cracking of ice was now like a thunder, and each step he took on the fragile grounds was a shaky step indeed. The gangplank was already being raised by the time he made it to the ship. Thankfully though, Jee was there to haul him up.

And then the ships collided.

Mongke was slammed against the wall, and was render unconscious as an old fire nation ship impaled their slightly newer model on its helm and pushed them out to sea, away from the Southern Water Tribe.

* * *

Zuko found himself impressed, as he locked the old ship's steering in place.

Sokka knew that there was a Fire Nation ship some miles out in the arctic wastes. It had been left there, stranded by an ancient battle between the Fire Nation and several water benders. Surprisingly, the water tribe hadn't repurposed it before now, but then, without Toph to break the ice how would they free it?

Toph excelled at breaking the ice. And she only got better the further along she got. The boat didn't even have to slow down for her to keep up, she matched their pace and excelled with her power.

Zuko disabled the traps (why were there so many traps? If this ship was abandoned in a hurry, he could only commend the soldier who stayed behind to ensure the water tribe would not find it worth it to repurpose the ship) and steered the vessel as Bumi brought the weapons on the deck.

It wasn't a plan Zuko would have come up with. And it wasn't a plan his sister _(Azula always lies)_ would come up with either. Maybe Mai could have done this, if she had a head for tactics. A final trick hidden up one's sleeve.

Zuko would have just taken them head on. Not all at once, but he was sure if he had his old body, he would have been able to pick them off one by one from the shadows.

His old body was scurrying down the side of the ship and onto the ice.

_No, no, no, not getting away that easily._

Zuko finished fixing up the steering controls. The pair of crushed together ships would reach the nearest naval station in a day or so. He didn't know whether to pity Mongke or Zhao for when the two of them met.

_Pity is a weakness. You must have none for your enemies, and less for your friends._

Zuko took his leave, and went down to the ice.

To say Zuko was upset, was an understatement.

The day started out with waking up in a body possessing what felt like only half of the muscles he was used to having. And with none of the bending. And then, if that wasn't enough, he discovered there was both a water bending warrior in the Southern Water Tribes, and a conspiracy that involved switching people's bodies around.

All at once, the world tried to force Zuko's view to change.

It wouldn't change so easily.

He could accept the surviving member of the Southern Water Tribe. He already knew that most of the Fire Nation's military commanders were morons. His sister _(Azula always lies)_ had often called him that, and he knew he wasn't a genius like her, and couldn't expect the other members of the Military Council to be geniuses.

But just because he liked to take the direct route instead of getting into convoluted games did not make Zuko a moron. Not by any means. And while he could accept being less cunning then his sister _(Azula always lies)_ he would be fixing the Military Council's woeful incompetence when he became Firelord. Then he'd deal with the water bender problem himself.

He could also accept a conspiracy to switch bodies. No matter how bizarre the conspiracy. He'd often helped Lu Ten peace together the conspiracies of court; he'd sneak into council member's homes and offices, piecing together documents and revealing their deeds to Lu Ten. He'd long since become used to the idea that there was always something he didn't know, that an entire group of people would. The only ones more adept at uncovering these secrets were Iroh and his sister _(Azula always lies)_.

That this particular new conspiracy involved body switching was also a surprise. But he could recover from surprises. Conspiracies were, by definition, a group of people determined to commit some crime in secret. In his experience, sloth, wrath and pride were sins that did not lend well to secrets, whilst envy and lust did not lend well to sharing. What truly brought a conspiracy together was greed. Pure greed. Whoever was behind this body switching… they wanted something out of it.

But Zuko couldn't figure that out. Mostly because of the unceasing talk of his new… friend.

He should have let her drown. Really, he should have. It would have been only fair.

Toph was the most contradictory person Zuko had ever met. She would fight him, and then she would hug him. She would drown him, and then tell him it was for his own good. She would fight him to a draw, and then almost die to a pair of mindless animals. She would be strong, and then she'd be scared (not very scared, but he could see it in her eyes sometimes).

In short, although he hated to admit it… Toph reminded him of himself.

And if there was one thing in all of this world that Zuko truly, fully, hated… it was himself.

But even that didn't cover it. For all that she reminded him of himself, she also reminded him of his sister _(Azula always lies)_. Toph had that look in her eyes, like she was seeing through everyone, seeing past their skin and into their workings. She was a prodigious bender, able to adapt to water from earth astonishingly quickly. She took the same sadistic pleasure in hurting people, although she seemed to at least think it was a game, and was ready to apologize if anybody was truly hurt.

There was no clear definition for Toph. She similar and different to anybody Zuko had ever known.

For so long, Zuko had seen the world in only black and white.

Toph saw in colors that Zuko couldn't fathom.

Who even cares? Why are you even thinking about this?

The strangest quality of the girl – the strangest by far – was her ability to trust him completely. She'd defied the Avatar's plan, cut him loose, and handed him some weird water tribe knife, and trusted him not to kill her.

He wouldn't have of course, but she didn't know that.

He'd tried to use her naiveté to his advantage and scare her, but she was frustratingly impossible to scare. Still she trusted him. She trusted him enough to give him his old body back, and with his firebending back, he could easily defeat her no matter how much of a prodigy she was.

Nobody had ever trusted him like that.

His Uncle had always looked at him with pity… always, always with PITY! _(You're so pathetic Zuzu! **(Azula always lies)**.)_

Mai trust him with her life… but never with her secrets. She worked for Azula and would never betray her like Toph betrayed the Avatar _(Don't get me in trouble Prince Zuko, I'm more scared of Azula **(Azula always lies)** than I am of your feelings)._

Lu Ten trusted him with secret spy missions, as a comrade in arms. But he never trusted Zuko as a prince or a brother _(hold on little spark, it'd probably be better if I told grandfather about this)_.

He thought his mother trusted him _(you're a prince Zuko, you can do anything you set your mind to and I know you'll do great things)_ but he was wrong _(Zuko, sweetie, I'm going away for a while)_.

So why did this annoying earth peasant trust him so much?

Weren't they at war?

Zuko felt the dao swords attached to his side. They were better than his water tribe weapons, even if they were dusty and rusted with age and neglect. He'd bring them up to shape.

She had an Uncle side to her too. She would make friends even with enemies, and she would be a lot less annoying if he could just discard her madness instead of listening to her.

All of these thoughts had come to a head. Usually, he'd like that. He'd heard a story once, about how an Earth King had created a massive knot, and challenged people to undo it. The wisest earth nobles had tried and failed to undo the knot, but Avatar Jafar had simply cut through it. Some people may call it simple minded, or inelegant, but Zuko always preferred the direct path to any convoluted games of intrigue.

But there was no direct path here. And he had no sword with which to cut through this knot.

Was Toph his friend, or his enemy? What would he even do with a friend?

Would the best strategy be to go with Toph and lure the Avatar in a false sense of security?

Should he try to find the Avatar, or should he try and get his body back?

Did he help the Turtle Crab, of the Eagle Hawk?

But that was when he had his epiphany. He went with her briefly, because he couldn't just let Mongke waltz into a village of defenseless children and women in his Uncle's body. After that fight was wrong, he realized; he need to prioritize.

That's what his uncle did, after all. As he said, 'A compass cannot point north, if there is more than one north to follow'… or at least, that's kind of what he said. Zuko wasn't too good with metaphor.

Bah, whatever!

Zuko began to stalk towards the Avatar. He was standing in a group of his new admirers in the village. Or would it be old admirers? They seemed to admire Sokka well enough, whether he was Avatar or not. Toph was getting her fair share of attention, while Bumi (in his body!) was off to the side, talking with gran-gran.

"Sokka that was so cool!" And then Zuko was dogpiled by a well-trained army of infant water tribe soldiers.

"Hey, I helped too!" The Avatar protested.

"Mr. Avatar! Mr. Avatar!" The kids pulled him forward, until he was face to face with the Avatar. "This is Sokka! He's the bravest warrior in the village!"

The Avatar puffed up a little. "I noticed!" Sokka said.

And it would be so, so mean to try and attack the Avatar in front of the kids, wouldn't it?

He was a man of honor after all.

The Avatar reached forward, uncertainly.

"Thank you for helping me save… this village."

My home. Thank you for helping me save my home.

Zuko missed his home.

Why was life never fair? Why could the Avatar keep his home, while Zuko had to wander around the length and breadth of the earth?

He was angry, so very angry, but he kept his inner fire under control.

"Anybody would have done the same." He said.

It was not a promise to stay on his side. It was not a lie. Zuko was more honorable than that. It was a promise; as far as their interests were aligned he had no reason to capture him, but when their alliance was over he would drag the Avatar back to his father.

Their bodies were switched. Zuko glared at Bumi again. Somebody had switched their bodies. He would get to the bottom of it. That was his top priority right now; as much as he wanted the Avatar, as much as he wanted home, it would have to wait. This was bigger than that.

Blue. That was what Toph had nicknamed him. She didn't know that he often dressed as the Blue Spirit. She didn't know how he sometimes ran afoul, in secret, of the maniacs his father employed (honestly, most of them were either corrupt or incompetent, why did his father raise people like that to power?). It was sometimes relaxing to strike back at people like the general who had sent his men to die.

So he would be Blue. He would put aside Zuko for now, and offer the Avatar no harm under the guise of Blue. It would be dishonorable not to defeat him in his own face. In a way, it would be relaxing to get away from his scar, from his pathetic attempts at firebending, from being recognized everywhere he went.

"Attention everyone!" He called out to the crowd. A small gesture of trust, to show that the plan would be followed… for now. "It's not safe here anymore! I'm sorry, but we have to move the village to a new location."

Some of the children seemed happy with this news. The parents too, though a majority were nervous.

"As you can see, we've found the Avatar." Sokka said. "Katara and I will be going with him, to help save the world from the Fire Nation." Now that was a lie. A blatant one. "We'll help you set off, and Zuko will protect you until you reach a new place to call home. Don't worry about him being a firebender. I trust him."

I trust him. Another blatant lie, but it seemed to work on the villagers.

The Avatar reached up (he was so small) and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you." He said simply. "I guess I may have misjudged you."

"Let's just find a way to get our bodies back." Zuko said. "After that, we can go back to being enemies."

Toph had an annoying smirk on her face.

Being enemies was so much simpler than being friends.

* * *

Bumi was proud of his new friends. He hoped they'd be as good friends to Aang as they were to him.

The fire bender seemed like a grouch, but he hadn't tried to take his body back even though he knew how. That was a big mistake for Toph to tell him, but Bumi liked mistakes. You could learn a lot from mistakes. Like how he learned Zuko was maybe an alright kid, like his Uncle kept saying.

And Toph was a sneaky sneaky liar. She'd make a good queen someday. She'd displayed a tremendous amount of power, even as a water bender, so perhaps her claims of being a better earth bender than Bumi were less exaggerated than he's previously thought. She was still a sneaky liar who lies though, so he'd believe it when he saw it.

And Sokka. Sharp as a spearhead that one. If Bumi hadn't met Bumi, he would have said Sokka was probably the smartest kid he'd ever met. That one would go far, and Bumi hoped he'd go in Aang's direction. He'd make for a most curious Avatar.

They'd finished loading Appa up with supplies. The kids seemed to be too tired or exited to fight, but bless their hearts, Bumi had no doubt they would quarrel again and more than once until their quest was over.

"Alright Appa." Sokka said, sitting on the bison's head. "Let's see if you really can fly. Yip-yip!"

With a groan, Appa lurched forward. One awkward hop. Then another shambling leap. Then finally, with a groan that shook the icy ground, Appa took to the skies.

Bumi nodded to himself, as he watched them ride into the sunset. "Yep." He said. "I can believe that they'll save the world."

"They surely will." Gran-gran nodded next to him.

* * *

**A/N: So first, just a reminder for next chapter; Jun is in Ying's body. King Kuei is in Zhao's body. Katara is in Suki's body, and Suki is in Yue's body. Hakoda is in Mongke's body, Mongke is in Iroh's body, and Iroh is in Jet's body.**

**Other switches will be revealed in due time. It's much more exciting, don't you think, if you have no idea where Ozai ended up? Or Azula, or Long Fen, or any of the other villains who we will meet over the course of this story. They could be anyone. Be afraid.**

**As you can see, Zuko's thoughts are more disjointed than the others. It's my belief that Zuko went just as crazy as Azula; even after years of being worked on by Iroh, it took a spirit vision quest for Zuko to become a rational human being again. Ozai worked a doozy on both his kids. And now, on top of having a very bad day, Toph is trying to fix Zuko quickly and without any training. There will be consequences.**

**I hope you're all enjoying this story. Feel free to guess where it will end in your reviews. I mean, I already know where this story is headed. But I'm not the only one in the world with good ideas, and I'd like to hear yours. Either because they might be good enough to change the story's direction, or because I like to laugh at how ironic your predictions are compared to what's coming.**

**Especially for ships. I only have one canon ship planned so far for this fic. But it's up in the air who else will fall in love with who. If you have anything to say on the romance, please go ahead and say it. **


	4. Getting To Know Me

_Hermits United. We meet up every ten years, swap stories about caves. It's good fun... for a hermit.  
_

**Avatar Sokka**

**Getting To Know Me**

* * *

The sun was setting, and the ocean was beginning to end.

Zuko, Toph, and the Avatar sat on top of an endangered species, flying towards the southernmost islands in the Earth Kingdom. Although technically, Zuko was swift to remind himself, some of these islands were already property of the Fire Nation. The others would be too soon.

Zuko looked sidelong at Toph.

Her eyes were closed. Zuko wondered whether this was relaxing for her, going back to not being able to see. Of course, even if she closed her eyes it still wouldn't be the same. She still wouldn't have her 'earth sense', and the light of the arctic would shine through her eyes. It wouldn't be the same, but maybe it gave her comfort enough. This had been a long day, after all, and he knew what it was like to be in a situation you didn't belong.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

Her eyelid opend, just a slit, and she glared at him irritatingly. "Nothing's wrong. Why would you think something's wrong?"

"You're not talking." Zuko said.

Toph rolled her eyes. "I don't talk that much."

"You talked all day."

"It was a long day."

"… yeah, it was. Actually, it still is. The day's not even over yet."

"Wow. That doesn't seem physically possible."

"I know, right?"

Zuko waited, but Toph still wasn't talking.

For a moment, he reconsidered trying to get her to talk. After all, she did try to drown him. She wanted him to fight against his own nation! What did he owe this earth nation peasant?

But… she was different. Special somehow. It felt like she relied on him. Like she needed him somehow. And Zuko knew that was ridiculous, she was so strong, and brave, and hot-tempered. But he still felt like she needed his help and… it had been a long time since anybody wanted something from him.

"Toph, seriously." He said, resting a hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Toph sighed. "I'm just thinking…" She said, watching their bleak surroundings as they walked past. "There's someone in your body… some lunatic is wearing your face, and pretending to be you. And somewhere out there… someone's wearing my face too."

She groaned in frustration. "I just wish I knew how to feel about it! I could feel sorry for the poor girl, who's stuck in my body. She'll be blind, and I'm the only one I know who knows how to use my earth sense. On the other hand, she could be a complete wack job, and end up hurting my family. Or… or maybe she'll get along great with them, and they'll love her more than they love me."

She sighed heavily. "I don't know which would be worse."

Zuko kicked himself. When he'd heard Toph call herself a peasant, he'd assumed she was an orphan. Of course she'd have a family.

"You said your family lived in… Gaoling, right?" Zuko asked. Toph gave her surprised acknowledgement, and he pressed on. "Well, we're at the South Pole, and wherever we're going, we'll have to travel North first. Gaoling is… North."

_What am I saying? Am I an idiot? I'm an idiot!_

Toph smiled. "Is that your idea of comforting me?"

"No." Zuko snarled. "I mean… well, yes, but don't get the wrong idea. You'll just be a more effective ally when you have a body familiar to you."

Toph chuckled. "I'm not the only one with bad people skills. At least you didn't try to drown me."

Something inside of Zuko began to bubble up. Something warm… laughter? He quickly quenched it. Laughter was a weakness. It was far better to be irritated. "If it makes you feel better, I'll drown you when this is all over." He groused.

To his surprise, she laughed.

"I'm glad you two are having a merry time back there!" The Avatar called from up from.

He was huddled on the sky bison's neck, draped in blankets. After losing his shirt in the battle with Mongke, and then spending some time still in the arctic helping his family prepare their exodus, he was ill equipped to handle the high altitudes of a flight.

Toph sat up straighter and looked over the edge of the sky bison's platform. "We can probably find shelter down below." She said.

Zuko already knew the island they were coming close to. "It'd be better to fly to the top of the mountains." He said, pointing them out.

"Wouldn't that be… oh, I don't know… colder!?" The Avatar half screeched.

Zuko shook his head. "The Southern Air Temple is up there." He said. "The air nomads have a very well developed ventilation system, almost as impressive as Fire Nation air conditioning. It should be able to keep us warm, and if nothing else I can make a fire and you won't have to scrounge like a monkey dog for shelter."

The Avatar turned his back on them. "All the other Avatars wore such fancy clothes" he muttered. "'But do I get fancy clothes? No, I get blankets and a broody teenager wearing my face."

* * *

Several miles west from where the three unlikely heroes touched down for the night, a partially destroyed Fire Nation ship was hanging off the front of a less battered but much older Fire Nation ship, and pulling into one of the newest Fire Nation naval outposts.

They were soon met by a man they thought was Zhao. In reality, he was the Earth King Kuei, but despite forgoing a verbal spar with Iroh in order to see to the ship's wounded first, (a dead giveaway if ever there was one) he was the only one who knew that.

The wounded were only slightly incapacitated by their fight with the Avatar. Lightly knocked out, mostly from behind. The real trauma came from being overworked. When one has a concussion, one does not then work full throttle until sun down. But the man wearing Iroh's face had decided to forgo such niceties.

All of this led to an extremely angry Captain. Captain Jee stood ramrod straight behind Iroh in the officer's station, where the pair of them awaited debriefing. He was filled with righteous fury, but he wasn't about to let anybody know by looking at him. He was too good at cards not to have pride in his bluffing face.

When their boat had the fortune of drifting into one of Zhao's naval bases, impaled on the front of another obsolete fire nation vessel, he expected Zhao to greet them immediately. In person. Probably with a few fire benders backing them up.

Instead Zhao seemed like he was elsewhere. The last time they'd run into Zhao, he'd lost no time exchanging discreet insults with General Iroh. Jee would have called Zhao a fool for this, but Iroh hadn't seemed to take much offense.

This time, Zhao had brushed past Iroh without a word, and immediately began to get the hurting crew members into gurneys for some medical attention.

Comparing the old Zhao to the one Jee saw now… he seemed haunted. Like he'd never sleep again. Usually Zhao was the one giving nightmares. Jee himself hadn't slept sound after one of his vessels was attacked by the leader of the Southern Water Tribe, but Zhao was reputed to have lost no sleep after burning a village down.

Jee was starting to get very suspicious of the way people weren't acting themselves.

First Zuko, then Iroh, and now Zhao.

Was there some sort of epidemic running through the fire nation?

No… no, there was no mere illness that could make General Iroh act the way he was acting. Jee had never seen the General in such an uproarious state. He'd never even seen the General angry.

But he'd spent the entire trip back acting like he was above everyone else – not that he wasn't above them all of course, in every way. But usually he didn't act like it! Usually he kept in the background, offering advice and giving tips as if he wasn't an expert on everything, generally helping wherever he could, like he was a pauper instead of a prince.

Now… now he was acting like Jee was nothing more than an insect, and that he deserved to be treated as such!

It was as if Iroh were in Zhao's body, and Zhao in Iroh's!

_Wait… _

No, that was impossible. Iroh would have found some way to let Jee know, and besides that it didn't explain Zuko's odd behavior.

Still, the General was beginning to act like his younger brother, except more petty. There was no telling what the General would do in such a state, so Jee followed his orders. He did everything Iroh asked, no matter how condescending it was. He tended to the men who were forced to work even after the injuries they'd sustained from the Avatar. He gently investigated Iroh's new outlook on life, and the repercussions it could have.

And he stood quietly, in the back of the officer's station, trying very hard not to be furious as Iroh talked to Zhao.

"So…" Zhao said, as the tea was prepared. "How did your journey south see you General Iroh?"

"Well, there is some good luck, and bad luck." Iroh said. "As you may have noticed by my ship."

"Yes, how did it get…" Zhao searched for a word. "Impaled?"

"We had some trouble with a water bending fugitive." Iroh lied easily. "I will commandeer some of your boats, and head out in the morning."

"And what makes you think I would allow that?" Zhao asked with irritation. Some of the steel that had been conspicuously missing crept into his voice.

Iroh drew himself up straight. "I realize that with the death of my son, I might have gone soft these past few years." He all but growled. "But I still outrank your military title, and I am the firstborn prince of the Fire Nation. When I leave in the morning, I will be taking a compliment of ships with me."

Jee saw surprise on Zhao's face, but not at the threat that laced Iroh's words. It seemed to him that Zhaos was shocked when Iroh brought up being a prince.

That didn't make sense.

Just one more thing that didn't make sense.

Zhao looked like he was resolving himself to do something. The tea was brought in, and he gestured for Iroh to drink. At least that part of Iroh's personality hadn't changed.

"Your wish is my command." Zhao began, after sipping his tea. "How could I not follow such a commanding personage as the one before me? I'd wager you would be a better Firelord than the one currently on the throne."

Jee frowned. What was Zhao up to? Iroh would never respond to such obvious flattery…

"But of course!" Iroh said, a hint of anger in his voice. "My brother Ozai didn't even hold a military title! How could that coward be superior to me?"

… Unless Iroh was taking stupid pills. That had to be what was going on here.

"And I'd most certainly be a better Firelord than that spoiled brat Azula." Iroh continued. "Or the late Prince Zuko. By the spirits, if it weren't for me he would have died long ago."

Jee didn't particularly care for the boy… but Iroh had never been so dismissive of him before.

"I'm afraid I'm not up on current events, being stationed so far south." Zhao said, with… to Jee's eyes, the mask of apathy a gambler wore when he didn't want anybody to know he had a bum hand.

"I'm afraid he died this afternoon." Iroh murmured. Zhao was appalled by the bald-faced lie. What did he plan on doing if Zuko showed up alive and well? "Murdered by the Avatar – I mean, by the water bending fugitive I mentioned earlier."

Stupid pills. It was the only possible explanation.

Zhao, on the other hand, seemed aware of exactly what Iroh's slip-up meant. "The… oh, of course." He nodded, pretending to not have noticed Iroh's slip-up in his sympathy. "A water bender. What a… cruel way to die."

"It was better than he deserved." Iroh growled menacingly. "I don't know why Iroh – I don't know why I didn't push my nephew overboard myself, long ago."

Zhao's jaw dropped. It seemed to Zhao as if he'd only just realized something incredibly important. He rallied, and tried a stab at sympathy once more. "I see… well, I shall have my men fetch a messenger hawk at once. No doubt the Firelord will want to hear of his son's death. And… we shall begin preparing the proper funeral arrangements immediately."

To everybody's surprise, Iroh started laughing. "There's no need to kiss my older brother's boots any more Zhao. In fact… why send the message immediately? Why not delay it a while?"

Zhao gave Iroh a hard glare. Then sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose in defeat.

Iroh-on-stupid-pills seemed to notice that much at least. "I know we have had our little disagreements in the past, Zhao." He said with a smug smirk. "But I think perhaps it is time to put our disagreements at an end."

Zhao raised an eyebrow. "What past disagreements?" Zhao asked, with a shrug. "They must have been small, I can barely remember them. It would be more… advantageous to look to the future instead of the past, don't you think Prince Iroh?"

Iroh smirked. "With Zuko out of the way, it will soon be Firelord Iroh."

"I believe we understand each other perfectly, your majesty." Zhao said, pouring him another cup of tea. "And when you are Firelord… what will your next actions be for the war?"

"Well, some changes in the command structure would be necessary of course." Iroh smiled like a benevolent king. "And someone like you Zhao, could easily become a member of the War Council, if your loyalty is proven. You may even get the chance to finish where I left off in Ba Sing Seh."

There was a chink of china hitting the floor.

Zhao's hands seemed to have fumbled. The tea pot had shattered against the floor, and spilled all over Iroh. Iroh cursed and yelled, as he tried to clean himself up.

He was focused on his efforts… but Jee was focused on Zhao.

His hands didn't fumble. They were shaking. His face had gone as white as a sheet. His lower lip quivered, his pupils dilated, his breathing began to patter like a mouse dog's feet.

He was shocked. And more than a little afraid.

"Watch where you're pouring that tea Zhao!" Iroh snarled, shaking his robes in the mad panic of a man who had already been set on fire by tea once today.

Zhao had stopped shaking, but now he was holding himself stiff, like he could fall apart any minute. "My apologies Iroh, I just hadn't realized the scope of your… ambition." He smiled, stiffly. "Ba Sing Seh is impenetrable to invaders. I hope sending me to invade wouldn't be some punishment for our past differences. I thought we'd forgotten those."

Iroh shook his head. "It's not that hard. I made it past the first wall easily enough. And once you're past the first wall, it's only a matter of burning their crops and starving them out. If I hadn't lost my son in the fight, if I hadn't succumbed to my grief, Ba Sing Seh would be a Fire Nation territory by now."

And as Jee watched Zhao, he noticed sadness etched into every line of his face. But he could not fathom how deep that sorrow went. He could not know that the Earth King of Bah Sing Seh was behind Zhao's face.

He could not comprehend the sorrow of a king who had so thoroughly failed his people that he didn't even know when his kingdom was being invaded. A king who had failed in his duties at every conceivable level.

Kuei cursed his own foolishness. He cursed himself for not being more active in the kingdom. He cursed himself for allowing himself to be counselled by such an absent minded chancellor, for surrounding himself with fools as advisors.

But these he cursed silently.

For most of all, most of all he cursed the man sitting in front of him. The man he believed responsible for an invasion of his kingdom. The man who he believed was capable at laughing at his son's death.

And this man would not see the king's shame, or sorrow.

Nor would he see the fall of the sword when the Earth King executed justice for his people.

This man would only see Zhao, calmly sipping his tea.

Jee had no idea what was going on. But he was determined to write somebody a very strongly worded letter.

* * *

The evening passed into night, and the night into morning. And far away, for the first time in hundreds of years, children woke up inside the Southern Air Temple. Three children in particular. The first was a Fire Nation prince without any fire. He rose with the sun and, after briefly considering killing the other two before deciding against it as dishonorable, went about exercising, so as to hone his physique to what he considered a useful level.

The second, a mischievous earth bending aristocrat in the body of a water bending princess, used her new eyes to sneak a peek at a shirtless Zuko in Sokka's body, before deciding to wake Sokka himself.

"Goooood morning earth bending student!"

With this battle cry she rolled Sokka off of Appa, sleeping roll and all. Sokk barely had to to groan in pain before, half-woken from slumber by Toph, Appa rolled over and squashed him.

"Aaieep!" Sokka yelped from underneath the ten ton animal.

"Come on out of there snoozles!"

"Easier said than done!" his muffled voice yelled back.

Toph sighed. She turned to Appa. "Hey big guy." She said, patting the sky bison. "Do you mind rolling over just a tad?"

Appa grunted, and continued his rolling. Sokka was lying in an indent in the ground exactly the shape and depth of his sleeping roll.

"I'm glad you've become acquainted with pain." Toph snickered. "He's gonna be your new best friend over the next few days."

"Hello pain." He groaned sarcastically, and mimed a handshake with an invisible someone. "It's nice to meet you, but I'm not dressed for company. Come back at noon, we'll do lunch."

Then he rolled over, pulling his sleeping bag over his head. Or at least he tried to. Toph hadn't really taught anybody before, but she'd 'seen' Xin Fu train his rumblers, and she knew how to yell. They weren't as good as she was, but they were better than any pansy that came out of Yu's so-called 'school'. No, she would not be taking the soft approach.

"So you think you're a funny guy?" Toph asked with a sneer.

"No, I'm sarcastic." Sokka said, putting on a hoity toity accent. "Clowns are funny. Fire Nation soldiers tripping on sea-banana peels are funny. I am an artist."

Toph nodded sympathetically. "You keep that sense of humor Snoozles." She said. "It might keep you alive… for now."

And with that, she unceremoniously dragged Sokka away sleeping bag and all (trying very hard to pretend that doing so was an easy feat. Even with her new taller body, her arms were rather flimsy).

The pair of them soon reached a field Toph had scouted earlier. It was a rock garden. She'd heard of them, but she'd never actually been to one. Even without her earth sense and just her eyes, it looked beautiful.

"Hey." Zuko joined the two of them, a towel hanging over his shoulders. "You two are finally up."

"Yeah, I had to drag Toph out of bed." Sokka said eyeing Zuko's work-out attire. "I've been trying to convince her to teach me earth bending, but she just wants to sleep."

Oh. For that, Sokka was going to be doing triple a beginner's granite pumps.

Zuko's blue eyes turned to Toph. "You're teaching him earth bending?"

Toph shrugged. "Only the best get to teach the Avatar. I'm the best. Nobody's teaching snoozles here earth bending but me."

He sent a suspicious glare at Sokka. "What if he uses earth bending to fight the Fire Nation?"

Sokka brightened immensely. "Good idea!" He exclaimed, as if the thought had just occurred to him.

For all Toph knew, it had. He wasn't making a very good first impression as Avatar.

Her hand shot in front of his face, stopping him. "He's not going to fight the Fire Nation Zuko." She said. "But we're going to be trying to get our bodies back. He needs training to fight whatever spirit did this to us. Right now he's useless; he only has a boomerang and a wooden sword."

"I can still fight!" Sokka protested, his adorable baby-ish face contorting into rage. "And my machete is made out of whale-snake bone so it doesn't sink if it falls in the ocean! It's just as sharp as metal!"

"I'm sure it is." Toph rolled her eyes. She leaned over and stage-whispered to Zuko; "You see why I want to teach him to defend himself?"

Zuko nodded, his stoic expression unchanged. "Carry on."

Sokka mumbled something that Toph couldn't pick up, but it was probably hilarious.

"Right!" She clapped her hands. "Ready to get started?"

Sokka brightened. "So what're you gonna teach me first?" He asked. "Ooh, how about you teach me to make one of those relaxing steaming mud baths? I hear they cleanse the pores, and these bad boys have through no fault of my own, been stuck underwater for a hundred years."

Toph and Zuko stared at him. She didn't even know what a mud bath was. Well, she knew what it was, but she'd never ever had occasion to try and replicate it.

"… Let's start with move a rock."

Sokka nodded sagely, as if that had been his idea all along. "Sounds good, sounds good."

Hoo boy. She had her work cut out for her.

She settled into a demonstrative stance. "The key to earth bending is your stance." She explained, allowing her bare toes to wriggle into the sand. "You gotta be steady and strong. Rock is a stubborn element. If you want to move it, you've got to be like a rock yourself."

Sokka mimicked her movements. To her surprise, his stance seemed flawless. She walked over and pushed him, but he stayed firm. "Good." She said, pleased with his fast learning. "Now, the actual motion to this one is pretty simple."

She settled back into her stance, and demonstrated a simple earth bending punch. If she'd still had her bending, she would have knocked one of these rocks into the next mountain. She nodded to Sokka, and… his aim was slightly off. She walked over and raised his arm a little. He repeated the motion again, and while still a little low, it was better than any of Yu's students that she'd seen.

"Nothing's happening." Zuko said.

"Yeah, aren't the rocks supposed to move by now?"

"Those were just practice runs." Toph said. "But you learn quick. Ready to give it a try for real?"

Of course, the stance would only help him a little unless he had the right attitude.

"Try it on that rock." She said, pointing to a boulder standing a safe distance away in case he put too much force into it and shattered. She was teaching him how to harness rocks to his limits before she taught him how to pull back his limits. But you never knew, the Avatar might pack too much punch.

Once again, her expectations were woefully high.

Sokka's punch was perfect, but the rock refused to move. After the first few punches, he just sort of devolved into a flailing mess waving his arms around trying to move the rock. Toph and Zuko could only watch with identical underwhelmed looks on their faces.

This was the guy she'd seen throw a ship onto an iceberg?

Sokka groaned in frustration. He walked right up to the boulder, pressing his fist against it, settled into his stance, then punched it.

"Ouch!" He howled in pain, pulling his arm back.

"Okay, Blue's right, this isn't working." Toph said with a frown.

Sokka stroked his chin. "Maybe if I came at it from another angle?"

"No." Toph shook her head. "You can't afford to think like a waterbender when you're earth bending. Maybe that's you're problem. There's no different angle, no clever solution, no trickety trick that's gonna move that rock. You've gotta face it head on. And when I say head on, I mean like this!"

To illustrate her point, Toph leaped forward and headbutted the rock, shattering it into smithereens.

"OOOOOOW!"

"Toph!" Zuko and Sokka started forward, then paused, when they took in the remains of the boulder lying at her feet.

"I thought you weren't an earth bender any more." Sokka gasped.

"I'm not." Toph said, rubbing her forehead. "The rock was just soft."

"Are you okay?" Sokk asked, in awe.

She winced. "Stop shouting."

Zuko turned to Sokka. "I'm going to see if Air Nomads had any headache medicine that survived the attack."

"I don't need no medithine. I'm Toph Bei Bei!"

* * *

While Zuko was attending to Toph's medicine, Iroh was sitting half a continent away, far up to the north. The real Iroh that is, not the imitator trying to take advantage of his face. He sat in the back parlor of an old friend's shop; Mukki had long since retired from his regiment of course, but nobody retired from the White Lotus Society.

"It will take a while to gather the information you asked for." Mukki explained. "But there was a report this morning that two earth benders attempted to infiltrate the White Lotus Society claiming to be Master Pakku and Master Piandao. And I have at least confirmed that Jeong Jeong is also showing a noticeable difference in behavior."

Iroh nodded. "It is likely somebody else is inhabiting his body. Warn the White Lotus Members within the Defector Brigade. They must be subtle in their dealings with him… I wish I could advise further, but I am understandably preoccupied. And inform those dealing with the situation that the earth benders likely are masters Piandao and Pakku."

Mukki nodded. "They're probably halfway through convincing them already. They've asked to spread word that anybody who is not known as a White Lotus member, yet presents him or herself with the credentials of a Master is to be treated as a master, and their words treated as such."

Iroh nodded. "Make that an order from the Grandmaster." He said. Then he nodded gratefully towards Mukki. "Thank you for your swift trust old friend."

At first, Mukki hadn't believed his story either. However, he had supplied many weapons to his army during his campaign in the Earth Kingdom. As an old friend, Iroh was able to convince Mukki of his identity.

"But so far, none of the nearby members have reported being body switched." Mukki raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Do you think, perhaps, this was a direct attack against the White Lotus?"

Iroh mulled the possibility over while he sipped his tea. "It could be." He admitted. "My nephew was taken, but it might be because he was the only one who could have elicited an emotional response out of me."

Mukki frowned and bent over, suddenly looking twice his age. "I am sorry for the loss of your nephew, Grandmaster."

Iroh bowed his head. "He knows how to take care of himself." He muttered. "A true soldier. But I fear he is not a general. He is blind to the larger picture. I believe he will be all right in the short run, but I must find him before long."

The silence deepened in the lonely back room.

Iroh finished his coffee, and as he allowed the lingering aroma to fill his nose, his eyes sharpened to frightful clarity. "If the White Lotus Society is being attacked, we are on the defensive." He said.

"This will not do."

Mukki remembered that tone of voice. "What are your orders Grandmaster?" He asked the Dragon of the West.

Iroh set down his cup.

"The White Lotus is powerful, in that we have resources, and information." Iroh said. "Consider then, how terrible the enemy we face must be; whoever it is, seems aware of the identity of the four Masters, and my own place within the society. None of the lower ranked members seemed to be affected."

"We may be jumping to conclusions. Perhaps this was not an attack on us at all. However, if it is a threat, then it is not a threat that can be ignored. We must act, but to act rashly against an unknown opponent is the height of foolishness."

His piercing gaze considered Mukki. "Did you, in the letters you sent out, refer to myself either as Iroh or as the Grandmaster?"

Mukki nodded. "They referred to you as the Grandmaster. I did not give any details as to your current identity, only that you were a non bender."

"Then, if there are spies in our ranks, my location has revealed itself." Iroh muttered. "And what is my identity? Jet the leader of a band of rebels. Was my placement in this body an accident, or did they know where my soul is? There is evidence for either case."

"There is?" Mukki asked.

Iroh nodded, grimly. "Indeed. For why place a master strategist in the body of a young, healthy man, who leads a band of rebels more skilled then the crew of the ship I currently command? Either our mysterious aggravators are a force for good and want me to strengthen the rebels in this area, or else they convinced Koh to switch faces of key opposition leaders, but could not convince Koh to switch them with people who would be useless as leaders."

"If the second..." Iroh's lips tightened. "Then the key question is this; there are many spirits that can kill a man in their dreams. Why contract a spirit who could only achieve mischief, and not kill your targets outright?"

"The fact that we are alive indicates two things." Iroh said. "Either, again, the forces at work are on the side of good – which good we shall see – or they have only placed their first tile on the board, and more moves are to follow."

Mukki blinked. "There is still a great deal we do not know." He pointed out.

"Which is why the defensive state we have been forced into is completely useless." Iroh frowned. "Key factors find themselves in bodies not their own; the natural reaction is to attempt to fit into your new life. But that means becoming stationary, and defensive. And even the strongest of shields is useless when fighting an opponent you cannot see coming."

Iroh sighed. "You know Mukki, I tire of referring to our nameless opposition by euphemisms."

Mukki nodded. He was getting tired of that too.

"Let us refer to the forces who have enacted this change…" Iroh ponders. "As the Snuffles."

Mukki was not drinking tea, and he still felt the urge to take a spit take.

"Snuffles?"

Iroh nodded. "Indeed. Whether a sole entity or a single person, Snuffles has the advantage so far, and the only defense we have is an offence. So; leak false information into the grapevine. Inform the White Lotus Society that the Grandmaster is in the body of… a young archer. Let them know I will be heading towards the Great Divide in order to investigate the mystery of the switch. Ghanji is still guiding people through the Divide?"

Mukki nodded. Iroh made his decision, and he believed it was a good plan. "I will head South, to Omashu." He declared. "I will send the Freedom Fighters North to join Jeong Jeong's men, but I will keep in contact with them. If Snuffles –" Mukki stifled a giggle. "– has a mole in the White Lotus, then they will head to the Great Divide. Ghanji will use one of his secret passes to escape and inform us. If they attack the forest home after we leave, then they are not monitoring us as well as we thought – perhaps drawing information from another source. If they attack the Freedom Fighters, then they will have Jeong Jeong for back up, and we will know they are watching both Longshot, and our communications. If they come after me… I will teach them what a mistake they have made, and proceed to find out exactly how they knew where I was."

Mukki hesitated to interrupt. "If I may, sir?"

Iroh gestured for him to continue. Every member of the White Lotus could play Pai Sho after all.

"This plan seems too complicated." Mukki said. "I've oft felt that the simpler plans are the ones with the greater chance of success. If you wish to toy with er, Snuffles, then why not simply fake your death?"

Iroh nodded in acknowledgement. "Indeed. Often, by small or simple means shall great things come to pass. But only for a known opponent. When facing an unknown adversary, the first few moves of a game are for the purpose of sounding him out. Faking my death would only show us one or two possible things, whereas this plan – haphazard though it may seem – accounts for any number of possibilities. We will garner more information this way then if I simply play dead. And if the plan does fail, we will at least uncover the stakes that we are fighting for."

"A masterful plan sir, as usual." Mukki bowed.

Iroh waved the compliment away. "Not so masterful, as you pointed out. If the Freedom Fighters are attacked, the evidence is circumstantial; Snuffles could easily have been meaning to attack Jeong Jeong and we would not know. If Snuffles decides to take that route, it could even mean Snuffles is aware of my plan, and chose the path best suited to confound me."

Mukki's brow creased. "Then… why have the Freedom Fighters meet with Jeong Jeong's deserters at all?"

"Because I will not risk the lives of children." Iroh said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I am prepared to risk their safety, as they are already in an unsafe position to begin with, but not to the extent that they might die. No matter what the stakes. It may not be cunning, but life is not simply a game of the mind, but a game of the soul as well."

Iroh's smile broadened, though on Jet's face the expression looked sinister. "But do not fear Mukki. If Snuffles makes the smart move, then I will find a way to make a smarter one. After all, if they do attack then they have revealed one very important thing about themselves; they do mean us harm after all. Thus, tell Ghanji to inform you of any suspicious activity at all in the Great Divide. Attacking may not be Snuffle's next move, or even a part of their plan at all."

Mukki suddenly became very aware that he was the one who suggested… Snuffles… as an enemy of the White Lotus in the first place. "Forgive my paranoia for suggesting such a thing." He said.

Iroh shrugged. "Let us hope for the best, and prepare for the worst. Not to worry, my plan covers the possibility of a friendly Snuffles too. And I hope you can forgive that I have not yet revealed to you the fullest extent of my plans – on the off chance that you are the mole."

Mukki was not offended. For all Iroh knew, he very well could be the mole. "I will see to spreading the misinformation." He said, with a low bow. "Is there anything else I can help you with? What shall I tell the other Masters?"

Iroh shrugged. "Leave Bumi to his own devices. If I know him, he'll have Snuffles begging for mercy before long regardless of my actions. Between the two of them, Pakku and Piandao should be able to make wise choices, but they are both quite patient… send a missive reminding them that waiting for the ideal chance could be just the same as taking a risk. Let me know the instant you hear from someone claiming to be Jeong Jeong. That is all."

Iroh stood up smoothly, without the gruntings and groanings of an old man with stiff joints. He did not miss them. Mukki stood also, and the pair exchanged bows, before walking to the front of the shop where the rest of Mukki's guests waited.

When Iroh had taken his first survey of the Freedom Fighters, they were a sorry lot. Most of them fought with whatever weapons they could find. Smellerbee had a rusty sword and a few kitchen knives, Longshot seemed to carve his own bow and arrows, Pipsqueak fought with a log, while Sneers and the Duke, did not even have weapons!

It seemed that Jet distributed weapons evenly among the men and women in his camp, in the event that they happened to be attacked while he was away. But this left their elite fighters using whatever weapons they could get their hands on. Jet probably only used his hooked swords because nobody else had the skill. The only spare weapon he could find was a curious knife, with a poison injector in the handle. It was locked in a safe place in Jet's tree house, so perhaps it was taken from the men who murdered his parents. Not something Jet would place in the hands of the Freedom Fighters.

From what Iroh could ascertain, they were quite talented. More than enough to take on at least a troupe of fire bending soldiers, provided they were startled and confused soldiers. And that was not taking Jet's unknown skills into account.

Iroh wondered what they would be capable of with real weapons.

Luckily, Mukki happened to run a weapon shop.

With a grin, Iroh stuck a piece of straw in his mouth.

The scattered Freedom Fighters, gazing at the weapons, snapped to attention when Iroh re-entered. "I've fixed it with the shop's owner." He said, hoping Jet was one to use the slang of this area. "Pick out any weapon you need."

Before he'd even finished speaking, Longshot was picking up a finely crafted recurve bow. "Indeed." Mukki contributed. "If you ever have any need of arms, my shop is open to you."

The Duke gasped with a wide smile, and began to rush around through the shelves. Pipsqueak followed him, and Iroh would have too, had Smellerbee not caught his eye.

Smellerbee… Iroh wondered at the enigma that she was. He recognized her, of course. At the northern air temple, those two bandits had been her parents. She'd cut her hair since then, almost looking like her father. And here she was now, the only Freedom Fighter besides Jet to use a proper, if shoddy weapon alongside her kitchen knives.

He allowed her to lead him to a place where Mukki would not overhear them. "Not to put too fine a point on it Jet, but have you lost your marbles?" She hissed angrily.

Iroh had to bite back his accustomed 'playful old man' response. "We're getting free weapons." He said. "What's the problem Smellerbee?"

"The problem is you're suddenly cavorting with a Fire Nation guy!" She gestured angrily at Mukki, who pretended not to notice as he helped Sneers look through axes.

"I'd hardly call it cavorting." Iroh frowned. It seemed the Freedom Fighters were not friendly towards the Fire Nation. Well, that was hardly a surprise, but it did present some difficulties.

"He sells weapons to those monsters!" She hissed.

Iroh could not deny the truth of that one.

"And now he's giving weapons to us. Free of charge."

Smellerbee's eyes narrowed. "There's something you're not telling us. Jet, what's going on?"

Iroh frowned. In a way he was lucky to have a man like Azulon as a father; he was quite skilled in the art of lies. He didn't enjoy lying directly to someone's face however. Especially not a child, to whom he owed a debt.

"I intercepted a letter between Fire Nation soldiers." He said, masking his features. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you… I didn't want to worry."

Her eyes widened, and he saw not a freedom fighter but a scared little girl. "What did it say Jet?"

He fastened his jaw in steely resolve. "We got too brash. Too big. The Fire Nation's taken notice of the Freedom Fighters."

A lie. The Freedom Fighters were, while clever in their choice of hideout and brilliant in their tree fortress engineering, still too small for the Fire Lord to waste much troops extinguishing. Especially with someone like Jeong Jeong rumored to be nearby.

Smellerbee smirked. "So we finally scared the coal suckers, did we?" Her smirk died as she saw Jet's expression. "It's not like they can find us, right?"

"If they burn down the forest, they won't have to find us." Jet said darkly.

Smellerbee looked away from his eyes. She was probably reliving the day she had personal experience with firebenders. She looked back up. "What's the plan?" She asked. "We're gonna fight, right? That's why we're taking weapons from a fire bender?"

Iroh shook his head. "We're the Freedom Fighters." He said. "Our first priority is freedom; ours, and the people we protect. No offense but… for now, we're not a match for the Fire Nation armies."

"So we run." Smellerbee said, with a defeated sigh. "Where are we going to go?"

"North." Iroh said. "I have friends up north, from before the Freedom Fighters. And I hear there's another group of rebels up there too; maybe you can make contact with them, combine our forces."

Smellerbee's head shot up to look into his eyes. Ah. Good. Iroh had wondered if she was sharp enough to catch that.

"What do you mean I can make contact with them?" Smellerbee asked. "You want me to head up there first? Scout the terrain?"

Close, but not pessimistic enough. A good quality for a leader. Iroh steadied himself for more lying.

"No Smellerbee." He said. "I'm going to stay behind, make sure they think the Freedom Fighters are dead."

"Then I'm staying with you." She was angry at him now. "We all are! You can't just leave us!"

"What is our first priority?" He asked her sharply.

She groaned with frustration. "Freedom." She muttered.

"If it helps, I promise I won't die." He shot her a confident smirk.

"I hate it when you're like this Jet." Smellerbee spun around, and Iroh masked his surprise that Longshot was behind her, and seemed to have been listening in for quite some time. "Can you believe this guy?"

Longshot gave Iroh a quick, piercing glare that almost had Iroh believing his cover had been blown. Until he rested a hand on Smellerbee's shoulder.

She huffed. "I know, I know. He's the leader for a reason, and I could never be half the man he is. But it's still tough dealing with him sometimes."

Iroh nodded. He well knew the pain of being held above the common soldiers. Of being idolized by his troops. It was why he spent his retirement bumbling about; not that he was trying to be on their level. That would imply he believed himself above their level. It was simply that clowns did not lead armies. And it was so much more fun being a clown.

"I know." He said. Jet was not a clown, that much he'd gathered. And if Jet did not have that luxury, neither did he. "I'm sorry. But it's not as though the Freedom Fighters will be missing a leader, and you can ask me for advice any time."

Smellerbee's eyes went wide with shock, her mouth compressing into a line. "You mean… you want me to be the leader?"

Iroh looked to Longshot, and the archer had a smug look on his face.

Smellerbee rounded on him. "Shut up!" She hissed at the silent archer. "You're obviously the better choice!"

Longshot smirked.

Smellerbee sighed. "Don't you dare say 'I told you so'." She muttered, pointing a threatening finger at him.

Iroh couldn't hold back his laughter at seeing such an obviously strong friendship.

Smellerbee was flush with embarrassment. "I don't know anything about how to lead." She said. "And how am I supposed to ask you for help if you're staying behind?"

Iroh put a comforting hand around her shoulders. "Leading is easy." He said. "It's just a matter of everybody knowing who's in charge, and shouldering the responsibility that comes with it. You'll pick up how to think like a leader as you go along. As for how we'll stay in touch…"

Oh, Iroh had such a naughty idea. He'd never shared this secret with anyone… there were a hundred ways this could go wrong…

But what was the point of a secret, if one wasn't willing to share it?

_Snuffles definitely would never see this coming._

"I have a trick or two up my sleeve. What do you know of the spirit world, Smellerbee?"

* * *

Zuko had watched enough of the Avatar's flailing around to last a lifetime.

He left the rock garden where the Avatar was miserably trying to earth bend. Trying and failing. Repeatedly.

He'd sent Toph to the Air Nomad dormitories, with headache medicine that was hopefully not stale. She didn't have to come back and train the Avatar right away – in fact, he'd prefer if she'd stop training an enemy of the Fire Nation entirely. But he could use the company of someone who wasn't so… loud.

It was like being with Uncle, except twice as pathetic and time times as many attempts to make him smile.

Toph wasn't in the dormitories. Zuko had searched this temple before, recently, but he had no idea where Toph could have gotten.

"Knowing my luck, she's probably in the last place I'd look." He muttered. Which was either in the statue room, which was securely locked so the only way in was through the hole in the roof.

Or…

"Oh no." He muttered, and he headed to the nursery.

When Firelord Sozin had cleaned the air temples, he'd left rooms in each of them undisturbed. Rooms that emphasized the brutal nature of the air benders, and the great sacrifice that the Fire Nation undertook to eliminate them. When Zuko had been here last, with his uncle, he'd left feeling dirty that they couldn't clean it up.

There were no signs of carrion. They must have lived so high up, not even the raccoon vultures could get to them. But the air had blasted through the temples, partially mummifying them, and though there was no meat on their bones, the hair still clung grimly to the skulls of the dead.

Zuko's luck held true to form. Toph was in a corner, huddled up and shaking.

"Go away." She growled, hoarsely.

Zuko looked around grimly, then trundled towards her corner, making sure to watch his step. "Is this the first time you've seen a dead body?"

"It's the first time I've 'seen' anything." Toph muttered.

"Right. Blind jokes. Ha." Zuko sat down next to her. "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't you who did this." She muttered.

Zuko frowned. "Most of the world wouldn't agree with you." He said. "I don't know… if I were born a hundred years ago, it might have been me."

Toph buried her head between her knees to hide her tears.

Great going you insensitive fool! Zuko snarled at himself on the inside, trying to come up with something comforting. "Would you like to burn them?"

"WHAT!?" Toph spun around and looked at him with a face of pure outrageous incredulity.

Zuko raised his hands in peace. "I mean… you know… give them the proper funeral rights."

Toph frowned. "You… burn dead people in the Fire Nation?"

"Yes." Zuko nodded. "I know you Earth peasants bury you're… I'm sorry, that didn't come out right."

Toph's frown deepened. "I'm not sure the air nomads would appreciate their bodies being burned. Or buried."

"Right, it was a stupid idea." Zuko nodded. Now would be a good chance to burn them though… he could pin the desecration of Sozin's monument on the water tribe warrior, let him take the heat.

But the idea had been disrespectful, (you have no respect) in hindsight.

Suddenly, and epiphany struck him; why stop at simply preforming proper burial rights?

He was no longer Zuko. Well, he was, but nobody knew he was Zuko. He could do whatever he wanted to… how often had he thought about punching Zhao in his smug face? Or sending prank mail to Azula (Azula always lies)? Or even just dance to the music every once in a while? What if he wanted to eat Earth Kingdom food, or wear grow his hair out a little? He could do all those things! And nobody would know it was him doing it!

It wasn't his honor on the line anymore! King Bumi was off somewhere doing who-knows-what with his body, he may as well do whatever he wanted in the water peasant's body!

He… wouldn't have to be tied down by the corrupt military system. He might be able to actually do something about all the corruption!

He could completely reinvent himself.

Zuko gave himself a moment to live happily in this fantasy world, before he burned it down. The corpses around them helped. The Air Nomads had been able to touch the stars. They'd lived their lives devoted to freedom. And look where it had left them.

Dead. The only way to live was the Fire Nation way. Honor. Duty. Respect. Trying to seek freedom was naïve (you're such a dummy Zu-zu). Carefreeness got people hurt. That's why the Fire Nation was invading – the other nations were hurting themselves.

Honor dictated he stay true to his own principles, even if nobody knew it was him. Duty demanded that he capture the Avatar, and find a way to restore his Uncle to his body. Respect demanded that he not go against his father's wishes no matter what body he was in.

It was a tempting thought… but it had been tempting to speak out during the war council too.

He was wrong (Lucky to be born) he always messed things up (Daddy's gonna kill yooouuu). He shouldn't be thinking about breaking rules; he'd broken enough in his life that he should be dead by now. Best not push what little luck he had.

Toph sighed, bringing him out of his reverie. "Have you seen dead people before?" She asked.

"A couple of times." Zuko said, grateful for the distraction.

"How did you deal?"

Zuko considered the question. "It's different for everybody." He said. "For me I…" He looked around, as if somebody would overhear him and laugh. "Promise you won't tell the Avatar?"

Toph nodded, shakily.

Zuko took a deep breath. He thought of all the people he'd lost… his mother and Lu Ten… the soldiers he'd stood up for in the war council… Private Goro, who'd fallen overboard in a storm, Private Taozu, who'd caught a disease he wouldn't have if he were in the Fire Nation, Lieutenant Li Mein who's honor would not allow a highwayman to rob a pregnant woman. Even those two bandits at the Northern Air Temple… they were enemies of the fire nation, and at the time he'd wanted them punished, but he hadn't wanted their daughter to be punished by their absence.

"Every time somebody dies, and I couldn't help them... I name a star after them."

He refused to look at the expression on Toph's face.

"A fire bender's strength is greatest during the day, when the sun is high. But a sailor draws comfort and guidance from the stars. They carve a path through the heavens that we follow. I've been out at sea for two years, following the stars, trying to get back home to my destiny."

"I know that death isn't really the end… but when you reincarnate, you forget who you were before. So when I look up at the stars, I do the best thing I can for the dead… I remember them. I remember that they died well, and pray to Agni that their new life is one deserving of their death."

He waited for Toph to start laughing at him.

Instead, she buried her face in his robes.

"If you tell Sokka I cried, I'll push you off the mountain." She said, sobbing at his chest.

Zuko was used to the danger of Toph's presence by now, but he had precisely no experience with a crying… anything! Much less a crying Toph! He was trained to fight benders, not tears! How did he… he didn't know what to do. He felt as helpless as he always did when watching someone die, even though this was nothing but a few tears.

Toph eventually stopped crying, and looked at Zuko. She giggled, and Zuko was ashamed that he'd been caught with his arms awkwardly hanging in the air around Toph, half attempting to hug her but unable to go the last step.

"Thanks for… you know…"

Zuko looked away awkwardly. "Yeah… well…"

Toph punched him in the arm. But it was more of a light tap than anything. "Any other advice for me?"

Zuko shrugged. "When my Uncle lost my cousin, he travelled into the spirit world to try and recover him. But it failed, and if you tried the Avatar wouldn't have an earth bending master."

Toph smirked, and stood up. "Does that mean you'll help?"

Zuko shrugged. "Maybe. As long as he doesn't try to attack the Fire Nation, we need him at his full potential to fight whoever switched out bodies on us."

"Good." She looked around. "Look around, maybe you can find some scrolls or books we can teach him air bending with."

_Ha! Zu-zu can't even make a spark yet daddy!_ "I don't think I'll be a very good teacher. I'm not sure I even want to be."

"I wasted most of the morning with a concussion." Toph snorted. "I don't think you could get much worse."

Zuko frowned. Technically… his sister (Azula always lies) did this too. All the time. Of course, her face was almost as famous as his own, but when she could manage it, infiltrating her enemie's forces and destroying them from the inside was one of her favorite tactics.

(Thanks for letting me play with you today Zuko. Mai and Ty Lee are so… fun.)

If he earned his keep and played the Avatar's helper, not only would he get to the bottom of the face switching mystery, he'd be in a perfect position to capture him when the time was right.

And he was not going to get lost in fantasies. The only reason he was going to look for air bending scrolls was to become more aware of the Avatar's capacities.

There was no other reason.

None. At. All.

"I guess I'll do what I can to help." He said, allowing Toph to pull him up.

* * *

June was no stranger to the strange.

For crying out loud, she had once seen a bear! Not a platypus bear, or an armadillo bear, or even a bear bat. Just a bear. And her brother with his cabbage fixation! And don't even get her started on her dad's death… who died in a freak eulogy accident? Her life was weird! She was the poster child for weird!

But it had never been 'Why are you trying to kill your husband?' weird.

That was new.

She wondered how she'd manage to top it.

June was currently sitting down, watching the sunset. She was waiting. And essential skillset in her line of work, and one she quite valued now, as it kept her something close to sane.

She'd woken up yesterday in another man's bed with a baby bump. The night before had been a typical night; drinking, gambling, putting arrogant pigs in their place.

The man she wound up in bed with did not look like he'd ever been in a bar in his life. Let alone someone who'd kidnap her from a bar.

Anyway, after punching and threatening him for a bit, his sister burst into the room. She was easily dispatched too, but not before she called June Ying a couple of times.

After a short investigation, she realized she was a foot or two shorter than normal, and looked like she hadn't exercised a day in her life.

Apparently, her name wasn't June. Her name was Ying.

She was not a mercenary, and by no means did she strike fear into the hearts of criminals.

She was married to Tahn. He and his sister Lian ran their family farm.

She did not have a brother who was a cabbage merchant.

Nor a venomous creature steed she'd raised since childhood that could sniff out a rat across a continent.

Nor was she particularly fond of dressing in black.

She was nothing more than a farmer's wife. In the shade of Omashu's mountains, where Fire Nation raids were becoming more frequent. She was as helpless as her husband and his sister, and perhaps this nervous break was her imagining a version of herself that wasn't quite so helpless.

June spat at the ground.

She looked into the mirror she'd taken to carrying around. Her face was contorted into a scowl that looked ugly on Ying's features.

Her mother was Fire Nation. She wasn't completely Earth Kingdom – she'd done jobs for fire benders many, many times before. They paid good gold. If all she wanted was to not feel helpless, she would have imagined herself as some sort of rebel leader, or many the Earth Queen.

This was not a nervous break.

If she repeated it to herself enough times, it might be true.

June sighed. She'd never been too hopeful a person before. Hope was for people who thought about the future. Hope was for people who weren't cynics that lived on what money she could make day by day. Hope led to financial planning, and that led to bank robbers, and that led to pain and misery.

Hope was for suckers.

But she still waited. Because right now it was all she had.

She heard a slight scuffling noise behind her, and she crushed the faint fluttering in her heart. Her Shirshu would make more noise than that. She turned around slowly, and sure enough it was her step sister – Ying's step sister – scuffling up the rocks to join her on the little hill she'd picked to wait on.

"Ying?" Lian asked. She was cautious, like someone approaching a platypus bear.

June turned her back on her.

"Ying…" Lian walked up beside her. "You should come inside. It's going to be dark out soon. You might give the baby a cold."

June had never been the motherly type. She didn't coo over the naked pink rodent worms like all the other girls. But… there wasn't any profit in killing the kid either. She didn't even take assassination offers when she was June. Not out of any moral compunction, it just wasn't good business sense not to make too many enemies like that. It didn't hurt to make sure Ying's baby was safe.

"I'll come inside when the sun sets." June said. "I'm still waiting."

Lian sighed. "Ying…" She said, with enough compassion to almost make June wish she were her sister. "This isn't healthy."

"I am well aware." June drawled.

"You can't just sit up here waiting for something that'll never come."

"Yes I can." She turned her eyes onto Lian. "That's what you and Tahn don't get. You've accepted you're limitations. People told you that you're helpless just because you couldn't bend and you listened to them."

Lian flinched, but didn't back off. "Sitting on top of a hill isn't going to convince anyone you're strong Ying."

June just sighed. "I don't want to have this argument again. Go back home, I'll follow you when the sun sets."

Lian shrugged. "It's okay, I'll wait."

Honestly, June wouldn't mind being Ying. Lian and Tahn were both… sweet. Possibly brain dead of course, foolishly naïve, with no concept of how the world works outside of their little farm. But… Lian had a little spunk in her. And Tahn, well. He wasn't her usual type, but Ying was a lucky girl. June was tempted to pretend to be Ying to have a guy like him. He'd argued with Lian against having her taken to a mental hospital.

She'd seen those places. Some fugitives had hidden there once. She wasn't squeamish, but she'd certainly rather be June trapped in a helpless Ying, then helpless Ying trapped in an asylum.

"Why is this so important to you?" Lian asked. "Why do you have to be June so badly? From the way you've been acting lately… Jun isn't a very nice person. Fun, yeah, a good person to have around, but not very nice. Is it really so terrible being Ying?"

"No." June said. "It's pretty relaxing being Ying."

Lian rested her hand on June's. June rolled her eyes, but didn't remove it. If Lian wanted to do touchy feely stuff, fine by her. She was just waiting.

"Then why not stay Ying?" She asked. "If you really want, then after you have the baby we can find you a fighting instructor. You can be as tough as you want to be. I'm sorry for suggesting you go to an asylum… but it's crazy for you to keep hoping you're something you're not."

June hated how much sense Lian made sometimes. She rolled the words around in her head, trying to find an argument, any argument, for continuing to be June.

"… You're right." She finally said. "Hope is crazy."

Lian winced. "I didn't mean it like that."

"But I did." June said firmly. "Hope is a delusion shared by fools who think the world is somehow fair. I just want you to know, I'm not hoping for anything."

Lian pursed her lips, her eyes echoing confusion. "But then… why are you waiting?"

And then June heard it. She'd recognize that sound anywhere. The sound of a tremendous (and utterly adorable) beast tearing through the underbrush, sniffing and searching for its prey.

And she'd never been more relieved to hear it. This was proof positive she wasn't having a nervous break; she was June. She'd been June all along. She stood up, and she stood with pride.

"Hope never pays off." She said, smiling dangerously at Lian. "But being the scariest woman in the world pays off more times than I can count."

And then her Shirshu Nyla burst through the treeline, and raced up the hill.

June's smile faded when she saw who was on Nyla's back.

It was June. June was sitting on her back.

She wouldn't cry but… well… it stung. For a moment there, she thought she really was June. But she was just… she was just crazy Ying.

Hope really did never pay off.

Lian was tugging at her sleeve. "Ling we have to go!" She was yelling. "Ling!"

If her memories of June were accurate, then June's shirshu was trained to paralyze anyone who trying to run.

Nyla was upon them now, and Lian threw herself in front of her to protect her…

Then Nyla skidded to a stop, throwing a paralyzed June out of her saddle.

"Rotten beast." The June of the ground muttered.

And the June behind Lian stared at the June on the ground, and then at the shirshu. "Nyla?" She asked, and the shrew like creature hissed with happiness. "Nyla! You remember me, don't you girl!? Who's a good girl, you beautiful lady!"

If she'd been relieved a moment ago, she was far beyond relieved now. She shoved Lian out of the way hard, paying no mind to how she hit the ground as she began rubbing her beloved pet around the neck. Nyla thumped the ground with its hind foot in happiness.

"I take it this creature is yours then?" The June on the ground asked.

And then June was angry.

"YOU!" She roared, lifting the other June up with one hand by the front of her tunic as Nyla snarled her approval. "What do you think you're doing running around in my body!?"

"Don't ask me!" The other June said, fear written clear across her features. Wow, it was bizarre to see her own face looking scared. "I just woke up like this yesterday morning!"

That fit in pretty neatly with what June had gone through. But it didn't matter nearly as much as the fact that June was angry and there was a nice punchable face right in front of her.

So naturally she punched the face.

And collapsed on the ground in pain.

"Ow!" She yelled, trying to lift a hand to feel her jaw. But she couldn't, because her hand was paralyzed.

Her eyes wide, she took in her surroundings and realized that Ying and Lian were standing over her, and she was back in her own body.

"I'm me again!"

"And I'm… who am I?" She asked.

"You're Ying." June said. "Blast, I hate spirit stuff!"

Her Shirshu had two different senses of smell. The first sense was for seeing with. Nyla could smell her surroundings with enough precision that she could move as effectively as if she had eyes, although sometimes she had problems with targets that wore perfume.

The second sense was her spirit sense. She could smell a person's soul, and the residue of soul they left in objects of sentimental value. It had a far longer range then the first sense of smell, but it could be fooled too. Once she'd been paid to collect a Guru, but he'd just entered the spirit world. And while Nyla was confused and wondering where her prey had gone, the old man walked his body in a trance up a mountain where Nyla couldn't follow.

Luckily, this second sense had allowed Nyla to find her no matter which body she was in. But that was still the only time she'd ever failed to collect a bounty. One day, that old man was going down.

The girl in Ying's body grinned. "Well well, it looks like the sword's in the other hand now, doesn't it?"

June raised an eyebrow at her. She'd seen this same girl shaking in fear not moments before. She wasn't going to let herself be cowed by someone like that.

"If that's what you like to think." She said. "But you have no weapons. You're probably not Ying so you're in a body that's not your own. And this venom wears off in an hour. Unless Nyla gave you another dose recently, I'll be up before you can even find a pointy stick –"

She was cut off when Lian held a knife to her throat.

June turned her gaze to LIan. "How long have you had that?"

"Ever since my sister in law began having delusions of being a dangerous bounty hunter." LIan said, the knife shaking in her hands. "Spirits… it's true isn't it? It was all true…"

"Told ya." June said with a smirk. "Put the knife away Lian, I know you don't have the guts to use it."

"I do." The girl in Ying's body said.

June had quite enough of her attitude, thank you very much. "Nyla?"

The Shirshu's tongue lashed out, and the other girl collapsed to the ground in a fit of curisng. No doubt she'd become quite familiar with paralization over the past couple of days.

Lian's eyes were wide. "Will the venom hurt the baby?"

June grimaced. She honestly hadn't thought about that. She wasn't the motherly type who put babies first. "I once took a bounty on a pregnant lady." She said. That affair was a sordid mess, but June followed the money. "She was further along though, almost due. Not sure how it'll effect someone as far along as Ying. Sorry."

Lian let out a shocked choking sob. "Then… then you can pay us back by finding Ying."

June raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Find my sister." Lian was in tears now. "Your Shirshu found you, you said it could find anything. And it looks like she only needs to touch her body to get back into it. Please! You owe us!"

June glared at her. "I don't owe anything to anybody."

The knife shook harder. "Do it, or I'll cut your throat."

Nyla snarled, but June shushed her. "Relax old girl, she doesn't have it in her." She turned to Lian. "Listen, I'm a bounty hunter. Nothing personal, but I only go where the money takes me. You're a sweet kid, so I guess I can give you a discount off my usual rates but…" But her family worked on a farm. And with the taxes going up like they were on both sides of the war since Ozai took the throne…

"Are you Fire Nation?" The lady in Ying's body asked from the ground.

June glared at her. "What?"

"Are you Fire Nation?" She asked again. "You have fair skin, and dark hair…"

June rolled her eyes. "My mom was Fire Nation, and I have a passport for odd jobs there."

"My body is in the fire nation." The girl said. "If you return me home, I can pay for myself, and for Ying."

"Thank you!" Lian cried.

June rolled her eyes. "Fine. I usually need down payments, but I'll consider this a favor. You and Tahn are good people." She looked down at the other lady. "You swear I'll get paid?"

"The moment I'm back in my body, I'll pay you everything you deserve." The lady said, smiling on the ground.

June thought for a moment that she heard a sinister inflection in her voice, and a shiver went up her spine. But she shook it away. She was just imagining it; after all, what could anybody do to hurt her? She had Nyla, she had a whip, and she had attitude. She was the scariest girl in the world.

"Then it's a deal." She said. "What's your name, stranger?"

The lady's smile broadened. "My name is Hama."

* * *

The first time Toph yelled "Rock Alive!" and shoved him, Sokka was just getting the hang of the earth bending stances. He managed to only slide back one inch on his opposing foot.

The second time Toph yelled "Rock Alive!" and shoved him, Sokka was carrying a boulder on his back as big as he could carry without earth bending, and was being forced to pick his knees up as he walked with it. He didn't even flinch.

The third time Toph yelled "Rock Alive!" she actually shoved the poles he was standing on. They were bamboo, and Sokka guessed they were some sort of air bending game platform. The bamboo wobbled beneath his feet like penguin pudding, and he was switched heavy weights between his hands at the time.

Did he even flinch?

No. No he did not.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be more to earth bending then a solid stance.

"I don't understand it!" Toph growled. "You're solid! You're rock solid! You should at least be able to do sand chops by now!"

"Maybe I need to start with water bending?" Sokka asked. It seemed logical to him; he was, after all, a proud member of the Southern Water Tribe. Logically, he should be learning how to bend water before earth.

"You'd still be good at it though!" Toph snarled. "You learn way quicker than even I did! You're getting it all right… it's just your bending's defective!"

"Toph." Zuko spoke up. "His bending won't come any faster if you belittle it."

The pair of them looked over to him, Sokka with a suspicious glare. He always preferred an enemy you knew was evil, instead of a friend you weren't sure was good. Zuko was definitely in the latter camp. He was Fire Nation for one thing, the prince of it. And for all the good Toph had claimed he'd done, Zuko hadn't seen any evidence himself of Zuko's good intentions.

Yet Toph looked at him with respect. "What did you have in mind then?" She asked.

Zuko got off his wooden bench where he'd been studying air bending scrolls. Maybe he'd found some ancient techniques, and he was going to teach Sokka air bending?

"He's not connecting to his element." Zuko said. "You need to start him off with what he knows."

Sokka snorted and Toph sighed. "But he isn't even a bender." She said. "He doesn't know anything."

Sokka wasn't quite prepared to say he didn't know anything, but they'd been at this all day. The sun was setting and he wanted to bend an element before then. He could accept a little humility over how little he knew about bending.

"Exactly." Zuko nodded. He turned to Sokka. "What do you even think bending is?"

Sokka shrugged. "Magic?" There was no way bending could be explained by physics and the laws of nature, so yes, magic.

But Zuko shook his head. "See? He has no concept of the spiritual side of bending. How it connects to him. He thinks it's just waving his arms around."

Then he picked up Sokka's boomerang, and casually tossed it at him.

"NO!" The fool! Sokka lunged, but was too late and the boomerang came around and hit Zuko on the head.

"Zuko!" Toph yelled as the prince collapsed. But he didn't go down very far. He just fell on his rump in the snow and held his head, hissing in pain.

"You can't just throw a boomerang!" Sokka yelled, picking up his weapon. "This is a precision instrument! It takes an extreme amount of skill to be able to pick off a target with a boomerang, much less to be able to throw it without getting hurt like you just did!"

"Then show me." Zuko growled.

Sokka raised an eyebrow. "I'm not going to teach you how to use my boomerang."

Zuko cursed. "If I just got a concussion for nothing, I will kill you! I'm trying to teach you how to bend you peasant! Just pick a target, and throw your boomerang!"

"What does that have to do with bending?" Sokka asked. The last time he checked, his boomerang was not magic.

Yet Toph's eyes lit up. "Ooooh, I getchya." She nodded, and suddenly she was the boss again, pointing imperiously. "Sokka, throw your boomerang at that post over there."

Toph was really beginning to grate on Sokka's nerves. There was just something about her bossiness that reminded him of his sister. But she wasn't, so it was both familiar and irritating to take orders from Toph.

Still he shrugged. "If you say so." He said, in a tone that implied he very much doubted that their plan would work. He almost casually threw his boomerang… and he'd wager even though they'd never seen a boomerang before, they could appreciate the skill of hitting the back of the post from this far away.

"Impressive." Toph said. She placed a bowl of water and a few pebbles on the table. "Now, do that again, only without your boomerang."

"Am I the only sane person on this mountain?" Sokka asked. It was very probable after all; they both had a concussion, and one was a girl. "How do you expect me to throw a boomerang without throwing a boomerang?"

"Simple." Zuko said. "Your boomerang is an extension of yourself isn't it? That's the only way you can make such accurate shots. You're intimately familiar with every dent, every marking, every scratch in its paint. Your boomerang may as well be a third arm for you. You know exactly how it will react to different air pressures, and you can throw it as easily as you can move your arm to throw it."

Zuko leaned forward. "Extend that feeling. The feeling of having a third arm. Pretend to throw your boomerang. Pretend as if the boomerang was actually in your hand. Then throw it."

Sokka sighed, then nodded, and lifted his arm in imitation of throwing his boomerang.

"No." Toph shook her head. "Your stance is wrong."

"You've only seen me throw my boomerang once." Sokka groused. This Avatar business was shaping up to be harder than it looked.

"And I know you have more life in your stance when you really throw a boomerang." Toph said darkly. "Sokka so help me, you will get this right. Really pretend that you're about to throw it. Pretend really hard that it's actually in your hand."

Sokka sighed, and resigned himself. He knew what they were trying to do. They thought that bending was the same as using a weapon. But that was bogus. A weapon was crafted by men to do man's work. Anybody could use one with enough practice. Bending was some sort of magic gift that people were born with. There was no comparison.

And yet, he decided to put his faith in Toph's hands. He imagined that he was about to through his boomerang. Without looking at his empty hand, he raised his arm in what he would only later would remember as the stance his giant glowing self was posed with in the spirit world. His hands felt inexplicably cool, as if he really was handling his whale bone weapon.

And as he threw, mentally adjusting for the weight of the non-existent weapon, there was a sudden flash.

Then next thing he knew, a spiral of fire was twirling and twisting through the air, It set itself on a neat curving trajectory, and sliced the wooden pillar cleanly in half, just above the boomerang embedded in the wood.

Sokka could only stare in silence, as he realized what had just happened.

"Congratulations snoozles!" Toph clapped him on the back. "You just bent! Finally! After your millionth try! Seriously, it's about time Mr. Avatar."

"But that was fire!" He yelled in shock as he rounded on Toph. "Why did the first element I bend have to be fire?"

"Because you're a natural fire bender." Zuko said. He gestured to the wooden table, where a bowl of water and a series of rocks were sitting. "You'll learn the rest, but it looks like fire comes naturally to you."

"This is like some nightmare!" Sokka moaned. "I wanna wake up!"

"Speaking of waking up." Toph smirked. "I have it on good authority that fire benders rise with the sun. So you can say goodbye to your sleep-ins Snoozles."

"Will it never end!?" Sokka screamed, raging at the heavens.

* * *

The next morning, as sun rose over Kyoshi island, a cloaked figure snuck her way to the docks the villagers used. One particular boat was prepared to leave that very morning.

"So you're really leaving then?"

Katara squeaked, and spun around. "Konki! Don't do that!"

A second figure slinked out from behind a tree. Konki, dressed in a casual tunic instead of her usual Kyoshi Warrior uniform, simply shrugged and gave Katara a cat like grin. "I can't help being trained since birth in the art of stealth!"

"You could've." Katara insisted. "Just a little bit."

And then the two fell into an awkward silence, where Katara tried to think of how to keep the conversation away from her leaving until she actually left, and Konki tried to ignore the fact that Katara was obviously trying to change the subject.

"I don't think you should go Katara." Konki said.

"I'll miss you." Katara admitted. She'd only been on Kyoshi for a day, but she'd bonded with Konki especially. She was a little clumsier then the other Kyoshi warriors, and she wanted to be a poet. She'd offered Katara a place to stay in her house while she got her feet under her. "But I can't stay here."

Konki sighed. "Right. Well then, I'm coming with you."

Katara was shaking her head before she'd even finished the sentence. "No, no that won't work." She said. "Neither of us have a clue what's going on. I have to go back South and find my body. Maybe I'll come back after, but with Suki gone the Kyoshi warriors need every girl they can get."

The Kyoshi warriors had taken the news that Katara was someone else in their leader's body quite well. She'd say on half of them didn't believe her. Maybe less. Katara had been near hysterical at the time, so she was quite grateful that she didn't have to be bothered with people doubting her honesty or sanity on top of everything.

Konki shook her head in bemusement. "You'd make a good Kyoshi warrior." She said with a tender scolding tone. "We're all about waiting around, consolidating forces, not attacking until we're attacked first." She looked Katara in the eyes. "As your friend, I'm going to be brutally honest with you Katara; I don't think you can do this."

That instantly soured Katara's mood. "I can do anything I put my mind to, thank you very much." She said.

Konki seemed to sense this was the wrong thing to say, as her lips tightened. "I'm not trying to be mean or anything." She continued. "But you said yourself that you're only an amateur water bender. You don't even have that any more, and I can tell by how you move you have no combat training."

"But I'm clever." Katara insisted. "That's what dad always insisted was more important in any fight."

"Aside from the actual fighting?" Konki asked.

Katara sighed, caught as she was in Konki's judging gaze. "Look… you don't have to worry about me." She said. "My father is the chief of the South Pole… he's been gone for ages fighting the fire nation with only a few battered ships and whatever supplies he can scrounge up. My brother's just as clever, and he's protected our village for years while father's gone. And my mom… she was really brave. And none of them have bending either. Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't be a hero like them!"

Konki back away, and held her hands up in a placating gesture. Katara tried not to blush as she realized that last bit might have come out a bit snappier than she'd intended.

"I didn't mean it like that." She said. "We're all girls here too you know."

Katara nodded. "I know." She sighed. "It must be amazing living here… people actually respecting you… I wish I could stay but I just have to go home."

Konki nodded. "I understand Katara… but really, if you need any help, I can be packed in five minutes."

"Thank you." Katara smiled. "But I'm the daughter of Hakoda and Kya. My brother… he may not be as talented as the Kyoshi warriors, but in my eyes he's a hero. And I know I can be just as much of a hero as he is."

And that was the crux of the matter. Katara had many sides to her, but right now two of those sides were warring with each other. One part of her wanted to take a chance, make new friends, learn how to fight Kyoshi style and finally prove to Sokka that she could be just as amazing as he was if she had the chance! Another more practical part of her wanted to lie low, find familiar territory, and gather information so as to make an informed decision about her future.

The practical side won out of course. She didn't survive the South Pole by taking many risks. But if she was going to take the safer option, she was going to take it INDEPENDANTLY!

Konki smiled sadly and pulled Katara into a hug.

_"We will meet again_

_For strength is not earned; strength is_

_In your heart always."_

Katara returned the hug warmly.

"One day," She said. "You're going to wake up and realize you don't need to prove yourself to anyone, and you're going to go out and be a hero anyways. And I hope I'm there to see it."

The pair of them pulled away. "Remember who your friends are Katara." Konki said.

"I will." Katara said. "Thanks for trusting me. And not sending me to see to a head doctor."

"Well, I figure this way, Suki won't be waking us for five in the morning drills anymore." Konki smirked. "Still, if you meet her, send her back home to us would you?"

Katara shrugged. "I might. Fair warning though, if she wakes me up at five, you'll only get what's left after I'm through with her."

* * *

The morning saw another you girl striving to grow stronger.

Toph took a deep breath by the river running through the temple.

"At this rate, the water will freeze before you can bend it."

Toph glared at Zuko. He was watching her from the other side of the river. He was supposed to be studying the air bending scrolls, but he was just sitting there like a lump.

"I know I'm connected to the water." Toph snapped at him. "I can feel it. It just needs a more delicate touch than earth bending."

"And you're all about delicate." Zuko snorted.

Toph thumped the earth with her foot, but the earth refused to launch him into the sky like she wanted.

"Whatever." She scoffed. "I can totally do this."

She thrust out her hand… and failed to do more than create a ripple in the waters.

She thumped her foot… and a drop of water rose from the stream, before falling back down with a plunk.

She tried to solidify the water into ice, and only succeeded in creating a massive splash, that drenched her from head to foot.

"Your stance is too solid." Zuko advised her, having gotten soaked himself protecting his oh-so-precious scrolls.

"So suddenly you know water bending?" Toph scoffed at him.

Zuko shook his head. "I've fought enough earth benders to know that their stance is everything." He explained. "And your stance is… solid. Different from the other earth benders, but still solid. And water bending does not work the same as earth bending. Loosen your stance."

Toph ignored him. He had no idea what he was talking about. Her stance was awesome, it was the water that sucked.

She decided to stop dancing around this. It was time to go big, or go home.

She brought both fists down with all the strength she could muster into the stream, her arms aching from channeling all the raw chi that she had… and the river slowly lifted out from its grove.

Toph smiled in proud triumph. She lifted the entire river over her head, the water still flowing but the shape that made it a river flexing. She was bending the water's shape, not the water's flow. Like lifting up a road, instead of lifting up every single carriage pedestrian and animal on the road. A shortcut? Maybe. But she would take what she could get.

"I OWN THIS WATER!" She roared.

Unfortunately, her lack of attention cost her own hard earned triumph. The river slipped from her grasp and fell on her. It wasn't a large river, so she didn't get to know how heavy a full river of water could be. She was still soaked to the bone though. And then, for some inexplicable reason, the water froze on her.

"You need some help warming up?" Zuko asked, stoic as ever.

Toph flexed, and the ice shattered. "You do remember you're not a fire bender anymore right?" She asked, stretching her cold muscles.

"Oh… yeah." Zuko muttered. He returned to burying himself in his scrolls.

Toph huffed, and tried to get her annoying hair loopies out of her eyes.

"Hey Toph! There you are!"

Zuko's head spun like a badger mole sensing a dangerous vibration. Toph turned less easily. Sokka was coming towards them, his little arms filled with bundles of fabric.

"Shouldn't you be training?" She asked. She'd given him a full set of earth bending warm ups to do.

"I've been training." Sokka whined. "I'm getting really good!"

"You haven't mastered a single element yet." Toph said, as bluntly as possible. "You're barely a novice."

"It's not like he'll need to bend any time soon." Zuko chipped in from the sidelines. Toph tried to keep a positive outlook on Zuko being Fire Nation, but sometime he could be so difficult!

"Exactly!" Sokka pointed to Zuko, who looked horrified at having accidentally supported 'the Avatar's' point.

_Oh, that face. _Sometimes not laughing at Zuko was much, much harder than not tearing him a new one.

Sokka put down his clothe and took a scroll out from between the fabric like a showman. "Which is why I propose that finding me some stylish Avatar duds is way more important, at this moment, than training! And so, introducing, the new look for the air bender saving the world!"

He unfurled the scroll and… _huh._

On the inside Toph was panicking. Her mother had often swooned over art and portraits, but being blind had curbed her interest in things like that. She had no idea what she was looking at. Was this supposed to be a drawing of Sokka? In a costume? On balance, she could make out what looked like a face in the jumble of scrawls and scribbles, but nothing she could project as something not made out of scribbles. Was it upside down? She hoped she wasn't holding it upside down.

On the outside, Toph took it from his hands and studied it with a smirk. "Wow. Gotta hand it to you Snoozles, this is a pretty sweet design."

"Thank you Toph." He said genially. "You don't think it would make me look fat?"

She eyeballed him. He was still shirtless, and he was still in the body of a ten year old. "Naw, you're skinnier than a sword." She said unconcernedly. "I don't think you have anything to worry about in the weight department."

Zuko peered over their shoulders. "Why are you wearing a barrel?" He asked.

Sokka was affronted. "It is not a barrel!"

"It is." Zuko said. "And where are you gonna get the cabbages to make the shirt?"

"That is neither a shirt, nor made of cabbages!"

"You draw like a monkey chicken that's on the run from a dinofox in the middle of an earthquake." Zuko said. If Toph didn't know better, she'd think he was enjoying mocking Sokka. "That is the worst artwork I have ever seen, and that includes my sister when she was two years old and started calligraphy lessons."

Sokka huffed, and spun on his heel. "Well at least Toph appreciates my artistic vision." He said, his nose in the air. "Well, let me know what it's done. I'll just get back to my training."

_Wait what?_

He began walking away like a drama queen, while Toph stared after him in befuddlement.

What did he expect her to do? Did he expect her to make his clothes for him?

"You know I don't know anything about sewing, right?" She asked.

This honestly seemed to surprise him. "Well why not?"

Because her parents thought her blindness was crippling. Because her parents thought so little of her that they didn't think she was strong enough to sew without getting herself killed. But she wasn't about to let him think less of her, so "Because I'm a fighter! I don't do laundry."

And again, Sokka seemed confused. "But you're a girl." He pointed out.

Zuko looked between the two, like a cat sensing an oncoming storm. A tumbleweed rolled between the two of them. Zuko briefly wondered why a tumbleweed would be rolling around this far south on top of the world's largest mountain range, then wrote it off as probably some eccentric air bender who collected tumbleweeds and slunk back to his scrolls.

"What does being a girl have to do with anything!?" Toph asked.

"Well girls don't fight." Sokka said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "They sew."

_**WHAT!?**_

"I can think of three reasons why girls can fight." Toph said, holding three fingers into the air. "One." Her fingers curled into a fist. "Two." She brought her other fist up, and settled into a menacing earth bending stance. "And three." With a mighty kick, she launched her attack…

Only to bend a small droplet of water at Sokka.

To be fair, it hit him square in the forehead!

And then he wiped it off like it was no big deal.

_How dare he?_

_HOW DARE HE!?_

"You put that water right back one your forehead mister!" She yelled at him.

"Look, I'm not trying to be rude!" Sokka protested, walking back towards her. "I'm just saying, girls can't fight as well as boys!"

"How is that not rude!?" Toph snarled.

"It's just a basic fact of life!" Sokka replied. "Girls can't beat boys!"

And now he was close enough, Toph turned around, and with a forceful heave born of raw anger redirected the stream at him. Zuko watched dispassionately as he was coated in ice from head to toe. Toph stomped forward and punched Sokka in the face, shattering him out of his icy prison and sending him tumbling several feet away.

"What do you call that then?" She asked.

"A lucky shot." Sokka said, trying to shrug even through his pain. "And a sneak attack. Listen, I don't know what the big deal is, if you don't want to sew my clothes that's fine…"

_He didn't know what the big deal is?_

"If you don't think girls can fight, why did you trust me to help protect your village?" She asked.

He was the first person ever to trust her. He'd put her in a vital place to protect something extremely close to him. He trusted her to be able to shatter hundreds of tons of ice and guide a cavalry to come to his aid when he needed it. So why was he now saying that girls couldn't fight?

"Well, that wasn't fighting." Sokka explained, as he shakily stood up. "That was just breaking stuff. My sister breaks stuff with her bending all the time. I never would have put you in the actual fighting. You might have gotten…"

Toph punched him in the gut. Katara may not have Toph's upper body strength, but he was still lifted a half a foot off the ground before he collapsed.

"…hurt." He groaned on the ground.

Toph wouldn't let him see her cry. She wouldn't. She stormed away with her fists balled tight. "I'm gonna kill him." She growled in frustration.

And as she passed Zuko, perched on his boulder and glaring at Sokka, she heard him mutter "I'll help."

She couldn't decide whether she liked his hatred of the avatar or not right now.

* * *

Suki took a sip of cow seal milk.

It was one of the more tolerable beverages the North Pole had to offer. The vegetables were all soaking in salt water, and the meat was all too spicy. She'd thought that the Fire Nation had the monopoly on spicy foods, but the Northern Water Tribe had her beat.

She still didn't know how she'd arrived here, or who brought her. But she'd seen signs of people searching for her since she'd gone to ground. There were posters in all of the bars, with her face on them. Or rather, her new face.

Thankfully, she'd already cut her hair. It was way too cumbersome. Her new hairdo was close cut, curled thin around her scalp like the silhouette of a crescent moon. It was a bit shorter than she usually liked, but it framed her new face well.

The face of the princess of the Northern Water Tribe.

"You know, I think the new hairstyle suits you."

Suki froze when the stranger sat down at her table. He didn't freeze, not even when she pressed her sword against him underneath.

"You're scared, I can understand that." The old man said. "But violence is a last resort, not a first."

"Who are you?" She asked.

"I think the question is who are you?" The old man raised an eyebrow. "I know you're not Princess Yue of the Northern Water Tribe, any more than I am Master Pakku. Yet, that is what they call us."

Suki hesitantly lowered the sword. "Fond of riddles are you?"

"Sorry." He smiled apologetically. "My usual company tends to indulge me."

"Who are you?" She said, thinking through his words. "What do you know about me?"

"There has been a shift in the world." The old man drank his tea. "I've been in touch with my friends. Several people have suddenly, and for no apparent reason, been shunted into the bodies of strangers. Just like me. And so, apparently, like you."

Suki frowned at him. "Answer my question, or I will kill you."

The man in Pakku's body sighed. "You were obviously a warrior in your previous life. I hate warriors. Violence as the first resort is always the quickest path to a mistake. If you kill me, you will lose valuable information about your situation and expose yourself in front of the entire pub. If you are a warrior, show some courage. Put the sword away."

Suki bit back a scathing retort. She hadn't intended to kill the man anyway, she just wanted to keep him in control. Threats were useful for keeping him from doing anything she didn't want, and at least it seemed like he believed she was capable of killing an unarmed man in cold blood. But he was unfazed by her threat for different reasons, and it wasn't a ruse she wanted to keep up anyway.

"Will you please tell me who you are under that face?" She asked, putting away the blade and hoping for a reasonable answer.

The old man smiled. "My name is Jeong Jeong." He explained. "A deserter from the Fire Nation army. I hope it's not a problem to you, that in my past life I was a fire bender?"

Kyoshi island had been fairly neutral during the war. So while she was obviously more on guard than ever now, she had no dead family members to make her angry, and no problem saying "It's not a problem."

His smile broadened. "I've always wanted to be a water bender." He said, wistfully. "And now it seems, I have my wish. Fire is so destructive… I much prefer the soothing rhythm of water."

"You said you've been in touch with your friends." Suki said. It wasn't a question, but she was not fond of riddles.

He nodded. "They report that someone else is currently inhabiting my body." He said sadly. "Alas, it seems I have paid the price for my wish to water bend. It is likely that somebody is currently wearing your face too, ms…?"

"Suki." She said. "I am the leader of the Kyoshi warriors."

"I have not heard of them, I'm sorry to say." Jeong Jeong said. "Unfortunately, they are out of your hands now, as my legion of deserters is out of mine."

The news chilled Suki. Her girls were in the hands of a complete stranger.

"I propose we be patient." Jeong Jeong said. "We know not who did this, or why, but the answers will not come in the shadows of a tavern."

"How can you suggest that?" Suki asked, angrily. "I'm not going to just sit here and wait while my girls are being… well who knows what's happening to them?"

"If you leave now, then you leave the North Pole trembling." Jeong Jeong warned. "Just as you cannot fulfill your destiny, Princess Yue cannot fulfill hers."

"I've never believed in any destiny I didn't make." Suki informed him.

"Nor I." Jeong Jeong scoffed. "I used to give Iroh such a scolding when he kept bringing it up. But I do believe that the Princess will leave a void here. Her presence is missed already. And it is a void that will be filled by you… or by turmoil and chaos. And whoever did this to us… it would seem their goal is to create chaos."

Suki understood. She now had a choice between sticking it to the people who did this to them, or going to her girl's rescue.

And honestly? She trained her girls expressly so they wouldn't need rescuing.

This old guy was either stuck in the same boat she was, or he was part of the conspiracy. Either way, the only way to get answers was to follow him in.

So, she gave him a grim smile and nodded. "What's your plan?"

The old man finished his drink. "My informants left the Tribe recently. We're blaming the kidnapping, and your hair, on them."

* * *

Zuko ran a hand through his hair subconsciously as he scoured the air temple.

It was time for the avatar's air bending lesson. Or fire bending lesson, since that was what he seemed to be most proficient in. But Zuko would prefer to teach him air. After studying the few unburned scrolls he'd found, he'd put a lot of effort into incorporating them into his sword techniques. A lot of their philosophies about fighting moved him, in ways he didn't really understand.

They were all dead; obviously their philosophies were pointless. Why should Zuko be moved by anything about them?

Still, he could see some of the techniques the scrolls described as being very useful indeed. And after being repeatedly scorned for his substandard fire bending skills… he'd rather not discover whether or not he was any good at teaching fire bending just yet. And even if he did manage to make the avatar a better bender then he was… he'd be a better bender than he was.

He was in no rush for another Azula (Azula always lies).

Still everything about the avatar irritated him. From the way he picked up on bending quickly, to the way he didn't pick up on air bending. From his 'artistic' comedy, to the way he actually had the gall to be somewhat intelligent beneath his bumbling exterior. And the way he treated Toph. HE especially hated the way he treated Toph.

When Zuko found the Avatar he was standing in front of the large door sealed with a statue. His chin was rested on his hand as he thought.

Zuko had high hopes for that door when he'd been through the temple last. What better place for the Avatar to hide in than a room nobody could open? Then he'd climbed in through a hole in the roof, and been severely disappointed. It was only a temple to the Avatar, filled with statues of his past incarnations.

"What are you doing?" Zuko asked.

He flinched, then his face became a casual mask. He'd been doing that a lot lately. Zuko knew how bizarre it felt to hear someone else speaking with your voice. "Hey Zuko." His reply was nonchalant, but he didn't turn around to look at him. "I'm just trying to figure out this door."

"It's sealed, water brain." Zuko said. "Come on. If you want to get your body back, we should start your air bending training."

"This is air bending training." The avatar said, moving as if to take the oars of a longboat. "If I'm right… I think this statue is some sort of keyhole. And the key is airbending."

Leveraging his arms, Sokka slowly pushed forward. Two great gusts of air flowed through the openings in the statue. Zuko watched with interest as his face became an expression of serious focus. The statue began to shift, pieces locking into place, mechanisms working unseen except through Sokka's eyes. Sokka grunted with the effort of keeping the stream continuous – possibly the door would revert back to what it was if he stopped air bending? The three seashell designs on the door began blowing back at them, before finally with a thunderous echo the final brass bamboo fitting locked itself into place and the door swung open.

"Woohoo!" The avatar pumped his fists in the air. "I am the air bending master!"

"You unlocked a door." Zuko pointed out. Although he had to admit, it was impressive. For a water tribe savage with no mechanist training to even figure out how to unlock a door that had stumped an educated Fire Nation prince was impressive. Let alone air bending the door open, when Sokka showed a noted lack of aptitude for the air element.

"Maybe so." The avatar admitted. "But at least I finally bent air!"

"You think you can do it again?" Zuko asked.

His companion's posture drooped. "No." He sighed. "It was like my boomerang… I think figuring out the door unlocked my air bending, instead of figuring out air bending to unlock a door." Then he brightened back up. "But I really think I'm getting the hang of this. Today I open a door, tomorrow I save a damsel in distress from some bandits, and in a month? Maybe by then I'll be up for staring down whole armies. One day, my name might echo through history, as one of the greatest avatars of all time!"

During the speech Zuko tried to keep a lid on his anger. He tried not to fret as the Avatar grew from humble to bombastic. He reminded his instincts to reach for his sword instead of for a fireball if things went sour.

And then a lemur bat jumped out of nowhere and started hugging the avatar's face.

"Aiieeeee!" He screamed like a little girl, and started pulling at the lemur. But the lemur kept a tight grip on his face, comically stretching out his cheeks and eyelids.

His screams were consistently girly.

Zuko couldn't help it. He burst into an uproarious laughter and started pointing at the avatar in mockery. He hadn't laughed in years. But the absurdity of the situation and the elasticity of the monk child's face finally got to him.

He bent over double, his sides splitting with laughter, and the avatar finally peeled the lemur bat off his face and tossed it out a window.

"Did it bite me?" The avatar ran his hands over his face. "Is it venomous!? Am I going to die?"

Zuko collapsed to his knees, breathless with laughter.

"What's going on here?" Toph grumped around the corner. She was still in a bad mood, and it showed. "I heard Zuko laugh for once. Is somebody dead?"

"The Avatar might be." Zuko wheezed out through breathless giggles. "We should check for… poison!" He lost himself in his gales of laughter again.

"We're packing extra of whatever he had for breakfast." Toph said, pointing to him.

"I was attacked by a wild animal!" The avatar explained, gesturing widely. "It was some sort of ferocious wolf bat, trying to eat my face off!"

Zuko had, unfortunately, tried to get up at this point. He fell back down, laughing like it was his favorite past time.

"So… how'd you stop the wolf bat from eating your face?" Toph asked skeptically.

"With skill, and ingenuity! I calmly analyzed the situation and… look out, it's behind you!"

Toph turned and saw the lemur bat. It stared blankly back at Toph, before taking a piece of fruit from behind its back and eating it."

Zuko calmed down, and stood up. "Better watch out." He said with a mischievous smile. "I bet it can smell fear."

"I'm telling you it tried to eat my face!" The avatar protested.

"Sounds like my kind of critter." Toph bent down and stretched out her arm. The lemur climbed up and perched itself amicably on her shoulder. "Come on Spooky, you don't want to eat Sokka. You don't know where he's been." With an aristocratic flick of her hair, Toph marched away with her new lemur friend.

The avatar huffed, then look at Zuko. His eyes widened comically. "What have you done!?"

Zuko raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"What have you done to my hair!?" Sokka yelled, pointing dramatically.

Zuko frowned. He hadn't felt it appropriate to cultivate a phoenix plume in this body, so he'd undone the peasant's topknot. His hair fell limp around his head now. Then last night in the archivist's halls, he'd used the ink to dye the blue in his clothes to black. He'd left the silver linings. It's not like he could recreated his normal Blue Spirit costume in the current environment, he just wasn't fond of the blue. He left the boots alone. They were quality boots.

"You're complaining after the clothes you came up with for your new body?" Zuko asked. "I know Toph's thinking of making some changes to Katara's clothes."

"But did you have to touch the hair!?" The avatar yelped. He squinted at it speculatively. "It's a cross between moping, brooding, and 'I hate my life so much right now'. It looks like I'm wearing a wig!"

"Yeah, I get it." Zuko growled. "But you could have just let me have my old body back when we were with Bumi."

The avatar froze, finger drooping. "What?"

Zuko snorted. "Don't pretend you don't know. If I wanted, I could be in my own body right now instead of Bumi. And who knows what he's doing?"

* * *

_"Hey prince Zuko?" A little water tribe girl tugged on Bumi's pants. "How'd you get that scar?"_

_"Juggling accident." Bumi replied._

_Several gasps were heard by the children failing to hide behind a snow drift._

_"Can you show me?" The girl asked with wide eyes._

_"I don't see why not!" Bumi laughed. He lit his hands aflame, then began juggling the fireballs._

_"Wow!"_

_"And that's just with three!" He added a fourth fireball to the mix. "Go ahead, add something, anything!"_

_Immediately the children began swarming him._

_"I've got a hatchet!"_

_"Juggle these knives prince Zuko, juggle these knives!"_

_"I've got a baby hyena badger seal!"_

_"But what if it gets fired or knifed?"_

_"Don't worry, the mommy is just over there! Nothing bad could happen to it with the mommy right over there!"_

_"Then by all means children, pile it on!"_

_"Hooray!"_

* * *

Zuko shrugged. "Toph told me, before she untied me. About how you wanted to trap me in here. I might as well get comfortable, and blue is bad for stealth. Don't worry, you're…" He gestured, trying to find the word. "…outfit will be done soon. Toph's waiting until we get to town to change into something more comfortable."

The avatar was staring at him quizzically. "Okay."

Zuko nodded. "Now come on. Let's go do air bending practice."

"In a minute." The avatar strode through the doors. "There's something I have to do first."

Zuko sighed and followed him in.

The theatre was immense. Statues filled every corner of it, each gazing due south. They may have worn different clothes, different hair styles, different faces, but they all looked the same. They all had the same look to them. A look of utter solemnity that gave Zuko the chills when he first came her. The stared dispassionately, as if judging the world and finding it wanting. Less man and woman, then force of nature.

"What do you have to do in here?"

The avatar walked slowly through the statues, taking in the faces of each one. "When the previous Avatars came and decided whether I should have the job or not, one of them stood out." He said. "Unlike the others, he wasn't wearing anything too fancy. He was basically wearing rags. But the other avatars seemed to… respect him."

Zuko's eyes swept the room. It felt cold in here. But he'd been feeling cold a lot since he lost his fire bending. Why did the avatar insist on being here? He was such "Why is he so important?"

"That's what I want to know." The avatar stopped, and turned on him. "Another thing I want to know, is why you're helping us?"

"You don't want my help?" Zuko snapped.

"All I'm saying is, for a Fire Nation prince… you're actually not as much of a jerk as you could have been."

"Gee thanks." Zuko fumed at the avatar. "For a water tribe barbarian, you're not as much of an idiot as you could have been."

To his further frustration the avatar nodded. "Yeah, I'm sorry, came out wrong didn't it? But still, what's your deal? You're the enemy. You should be trying to burn alive or something."

"I don't have my bending anymore."

"You just said you could have had bending. You knew it when Toph untied you. You could have ruined everything, and destroyed my village, but instead you're trying to teach me air bending? What up with that?"

That was a good question. And the answer was the same answer Zuko had for everything. "I'm trying to recover something that I've lost."

"… Right. That certainly clears up all of my misgivings about you."

That smug comment stung Zuko. The sarcasm bit at him just like Azula's, and it was somehow worse from this savage who didn't even know how insulting he was. "You're not the only one who has misgivings." He all but snarled. "I'm a prince of the Fire Nation. Second in line to the throne, after my Uncle."

"But I'm the avatar." The avatar pointed out.

"Believe me, I haven't forgotten." Zuko said grimly. "But that doesn't automatically make you in charge. I'm a prince. And for the past two and a half years, I've been the captain of a ship. Do you have any leadership experience?"

"I've been the leader of my tribe for the past three and a half years." The avatar said smugly. "And my father's the chief. I guess I'm just a born leader."

_Why that infuriating…_ "You remind me of my sister." Zuko growled. "Everything always came so easy to her."

"In case you haven't noticed, this hasn't exactly been a walk in the park." The avatar snapped back.

Zuko didn't hesitate to step forward and get right in the Avatar's face, look right in his eyes. "Oh I'm so sorry." He snapped sarcastically. "I had no idea that you might be having some trouble. Please do enlighten me how they're worse than anybody else's."

"I've had to leave my home!" The avatar yelled defensively. "I've had to fight a crazy firebender with no training, and leave my gran-gran behind while you two benders breathe down my neck about learning –"

Zuko slapped him.

He should have done more. He should have pummeled him to the ground. He should have beat him within an inch of his life. He should have spat on him, threw rocks at him, pushed him off the edge of a cliff just to see whether he was a good enough airbender not to fall. He could have torn the clothes off his back stole his bison and left him to freeze on this mountain. He should have taken his knife and scratched a mark on his face so that he would remember the shame of how he was acting right now.

But in the end, Zuko couldn't bring himself to scar a kid's face.

He was still considering killing him, but there was no need to be cruel to the original owner of the body.

The Avatar was rubbing his cheek and looking at Zuko with outrage. Or shock.

He would find no pity in Zuko's eyes.

"You've had to leave your home?" Zuko snarled. "Boo hoo. My heart bleeds for you. If only I knew what that felt like."

He rammed the Avatar against the wall, and held him there with his elbow.

"Oh wait, I do know what it feels like! I haven't seen my home in two years! Two years of nothing but water and sea birds, and shores filled with peasants who either don't recognize me, or recognize me only for my scar! You know who else has had to leave a home? Toph! She's on her own, with some stranger living with her parents in her body! She's worried sick but she doesn't show it, she just keeps on training you! Because she doesn't let her fears interfere with her duties! Almost everybody leaves home at some point. At least you got to leave willingly, as a hero in the eyes of your village!"

Zuko's glare was intensifying. If he was a fire bender, he'd have to pull back or risk burning the avatar in his anger. Fortunately, he wasn't a fire bender any more. He could let it all out.

"Do you have any idea how much I'm sacrificing to keep you alive? My honor is on the line! I've been exiled into a cold and unfriendly world for two years, and the only chance I have of returning to a life where I can know a feeling besides misery lies on me handing you over to my father! Even if you're an innocent, you still live in the Avatar's body! No matter how much of an emergency this body switching business is, if anybody found out that I was helping you survive, I would be banished! A price would be set on my head! I would be captured, and executed publicly for treason! This is what I am sacrificing!"

The Avatar had the decency to look flustered at least, but Zuko wasn't finished.

"So tell me Avatar, what have you sacrificed? You've sacrificed a shirt that wasn't yours? You've sacrificed your weak, defenseless body for one that could actually have defended your family from a fire bender if you'd had the faith to use it? You've sacrificed your small town with its pathetic snow wall, to leave in the secure hands of a man who has foiled all of the Fire Nation's attempts at taking Omashu for the past hundred years? You've sacrificed your time to train in bending four different elements? Most benders would give their right arm to bend more than one element, and you get all four! Most non benders would sell their families and murder their grandparents to spend a day with the power you have now!"

The Avatar sure looked guilty. But he would find no pity. Not from Zuko. He slammed the Avatar against the wall again.

"WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS?"

*Slam!* Zuko blocked out the Avatar's cry of pain. It was the cry of a child. *Slam!* But he needed to learn his lesson. *Slam!*

"What gives you the right to belittle Toph's talents or her situation, while you pick out the best clothes from the bodies of the dead!"

*Slam!*

"I don't care who you are, or how many elements you can bend! Show!" *Slam!* "Some!" *Slam!* "Respect!" *Slam!*

Zuko let the Avatar fall to the ground. The pair of them glared at each other, each taking deep calming breaths. Their chests rose and fell in unison, as if the beating of their hearts themselves were a fight that neither would give the other the privilege of winning.

"Fire benders killed my mother."

And just like that, every one of Zuko's defenses were ripped open. He couldn't do anything but stare at the boy sitting across from him.

"I'm sorry." He finally said. "That's something we have in common."

The avatar's head snapped up, but Zuko refused to give him any more information.

They waited in tense, pregnant silence. Finally the other boy shrugged and started speaking again. "I've always… sort of been jealous of my sister's bending."

"Jealous that a girl had more power than you?" Zuko smirked.

But surprisingly, the avatar looked shocked as if the idea had never occurred to him before. He shook his head. "No! Never! If she had the power to protect our tribe, I'd be glad for the extra muscle! I was just jealous because… she's so weak. If I had water bending, I could protect our tribe."

"You had no water bending masters in your village." Zuko noted. "You'd be just as untrained as she is."

He waved it off. "But I'm a man, I'd still be better. And it's my job anyway." He sighed. "It's my duty to protect the tribe. You know what duty means, don't you Captain Fire Prince?"

Zuko nodded gravely. "I know what duty means."

He sighed. "And it's our culture." He continued. "Our tribe hasn't had any water benders in decades. A water tribe without any water benders is like a night without a moon. It will still exist, but it's missing the most important part, and barely anybody can see their hands in front of their faces."

"And now that I have bending, it turns out I'm not a natural water bender. I mean, now that I can feel my bending, I can do it. It's a little easier than earth bending, even with Toph teaching me. But fire bending is more natural to me. It feels so right." He hung his head in shame. "I have more in common with the monsters that killed my mother, then I have with my people."

Zuko was still angry. Angry on Toph's behalf for the insult he'd paid her earlier today, and angry that he was being called a monster. But… well, if he was going to make this work, he'd have to let his pride go a little. It wasn't like he had much left at this point, and Sokka clearly wasn't intimidated by any of his past murderous rages.

"I don't even know what happened to my mother." He admitted. "But the last thing she said to me was to never forget who I was."

Sokka was staring at him now. Zuko tried not to feel his royal dignity evaporate as he plowed on with his heart baring.

"I never forgot. Even when it was tempting. I've been all over the world, and I've seen so many different people, living in so many different ways. You're lucky to only be jealous of your sister. I'm jealous of half the world. I'm even jealous of the dead air nomads, and I will kill you if you tell anybody that."

"Eh, you're Fire Nation, you'll kill me anyway." Sokka shrugged.

"But now I am somebody else." Zuko continued. "And… it's a little more difficult to remember who I am. I am Prince Zuko, the son of Firelord Ozai. I forgot that once, and dishonored my father. But in dishonoring my father, I dishonored myself. I forgot who I was. I have spent the past two and a half years trying to undo that mistake."

Zuko glared ominously at the avatar.

"… And I can wait a while longer."

He shrugged. The decision made. "I will achieve my mission. I will capture the Avatar, and bring glory to the Fire Nation, and my father. And when I do, I will be myself and not just in body. Attacking you while we're allied would be dishonorable. So don't worry. As long as you're working to put us back in our own bodies, I won't attack you… Sokka."

"But when this is over, you'll attack me without a second thought?" Sokka asked, eyebrow raised.

"And probably leave you a scar or two to remember me by, yes." Zuko nodded.

"Aaaaaaw." They both turned to see Toph and her lemur standing in the doorway. "Look at that Spooky, I was right. Violence is how you make friends!"

Zuko sent a pointed glare at Sokka. The water tribe boy hesitated… then nodded imperceptibly. "Toph." He said. "I'm sorry for this morning…"

"Woah, hold up there!" She held up her hands. "I don't do touching family moments. I know who I am thank you very much, it's you guys who're confused." She put her hands on her hips smugly. "I'll accept your apology once you mean it, if you can pick your jaw up off the floor. Now why aren't you two training?"

Zuko was shocked and bewildered at Toph's candor. If his scarred eye could open wide, it would have as she stared at her. How could she forget such an insult to her pride so easily?

Regardless, he couldn't wait to see how she proved herself to Sokka. He wondered whether he'd need to pick his jaw off the floor as well.

"We were looking for an avatar." Sokka answered while he and Zuko stood. "One of these guys was dressed in rags in my dream. I think it's important."

"But only air benders were allowed in this room." Zuko said, looking around. "No stairs. Maybe we could find some rope?"

"Or I could teach Sokka how to bend up some stairs." Toph shrugged, putting Spooky down. "But why is the rag avatar so important?"

"I don't know." Sokka shrugged helplessly. "It just seems like it's out of place. And it's the closest thing to a clue we have on getting our bodies back."

"I've been studying the Avatar for a long time." Zuko explained. "Aside from his bending, what makes the Avatar truly dangerous, is his ability to access the knowledge and memories of all of his past lives. Unfortunately, that takes meditation, and given Sokka's extraordinary dullness even to spiritually connecting with his own bending –"

"Hey!"

"–I don't think an advanced spiritual technique like that will be possible for a long while." Zuko glared at Sokka, daring him to question his knowledge of avatars.

Instead, Toph giggled. "He didn't call you 'the Avatar' that time." She mock whispered to Sokka. "I think he's warming up to you."

Royalty should not have to be embarrassed this often! Zuko walked angrily away.

"Toph we're men." He heard him scold Toph. "We don't put our affections in public! Zuko, don't take it personally! Lots of people warm up to me!"

"They'd have to." Zuko murmured.

He braced himself for Sokka grabbing him and turning him around… when he heard his footsteps stop. And he saw his shadow grow more defined.

Zuko spun around.

The temple was mostly made of some sort of grey stone, but there was a mosaic of obsidian that swirled its way to the center of the shrine, like a tornado. While chasing after him, Sokka had stumbled onto the center of the Avatar shrine, past Avatar Roku, where the swirl of obsidian mosaics met the marble floor of the shrine. And the mosaic was starting to glow.

The glow spread quickly, spiraling outward at an accelerating pace, like a tree beginning to fall, a tsunami coming to shore, a rumor becoming a legend. Everywhere the floor lit up, the eyes of the statues standing atop it began to glow.

Soon, the room was almost as bright as the sun.

"What did you do!?" Zuko yelled.

"It wasn't me I swear!" Sokka yelled as he flailed his arms.

Then with an ancient rumble, the walls slid open.

Not every wall opened up, but out of the walls that did open were portraits and tapestries. Depictions and inscriptions of noble looking warriors. Their eyes were glowing.

"What's going on?" Toph asked.

"The holy ritual announcing the next Avatar!" Zuko cursed. "Most Avatars go through it when they're sixteen, but if Aang is twelve he wouldn't have been announced yet! Right now, temples all over the world are lighting up!"

This was the worst possible thing! The Air Temples were of no consequence, but the Fire Sages knew the Avatar was back now! They might send someone else to capture the Avatar, and Zuko would lose his chance! And the Earth Priests of Ba Sing Seh knew the Avatar was back, and that would strengthen the rebels! The Southern Water Tribe's shrines had long been ransacked… which probably accounted for Sokka's lack of spirituality. But the Northern Water Tribe might even join the war, if they saw the signs!

And then the lights faded, and only one light in the room remained. Sokka stood there, staring at a ghostly apparition of himself.

Or rather, a spirit of the body he inhabited.

The apparition opened his eyes. "I… wha?" He looked around blearily. "Urgh, what happened?"

"Are you… Aang?" Sokka asked, eyes wide.

Aang looked at Sokka. His face pulled into a beaming smile. "Hey I'm Aang! Wow, you look just like me! This dream keeps getting better and better!"

"What dream?" Sokka asked.

"Oh dear." Toph muttered, and Zuko was beginning to lose the fight he was having with the dawning realization that the real avatar had no idea what was going on.

"I was flying through the storm, and when I woke up, I was a normal earth kingdom guy!"

"What's your name?" Zuko asked. "The name of the earth kingdom man you're living as right now? Who is he?"

Aang looked like he was about to speak, but after a moment of awkward silence, he frowned. "You know, I really should try and find that out." He smiled. "Thanks!"

"Aang this isn't a dream." Sokka said hurriedly. "This is actually happening. We all woke up three days ago in other people's bodies!"

The spirit's eyes widened. "… What?"

"Do you think you can use your avatar spirit magic to fix this?" Sokka asked.

"What makes you think I'm the avatar?" Aang snapped defensively.

"Because I'm in your body, and I'm the avatar!" Sokka explained. "So you must be the avatar!"

Suddenly the boy became incredibly nervous. "Look, I don't know who told you that, but you've got the wrong guy, okay? I'm not the avatar!"

Before Sokka could reply, the apparition disappeared. The eyes of the former avatars stopped glowing, and the hidden rooms started closing up.

"No, no, no!" Zuko snarled, watching the room close up.

And as the room finished slowly returning to its resting state, the point in the center of the shrine and the tip of the mosaic opened up into a small hand sized hole. A scroll popped out, clinking noisily against the ground.

Then the dust settled, and the room was silent.

Toph blinked. "So basically the avatar is a chicken cat?" She asked. "Fat load of help that was."

* * *

That night, in an earth kingdom village far away from any avatar shrine or spiritual site, a group of men rested lazily on the ground with their backs to their rhinos. They sat around a camp fire in the middle of a village square, as the locals celebrated heartily around them.

"There's no reason to rock the boat." Vachir was saying. "Our business is both financially sound, and tested. We raid villages, have some fun, drop the loot off at the next village, and use the profits to have more fun."

Hakoda stroked his nose ring absentmindedly. The other Riders thought they were dealing with Mongke; they were wrong.

Earlier today, they'd come across a village and began preparing to raid it. But Hakoda had convinced them to protect the village instead, when the Fire Nation military had shown up intent on doing the Rhino's jobs of burning it down.

"But we made more money today." He pointed out. "And in the long run, if we keep raiding villages like this we'll make too many enemies to be able to retire."

"Nobody here is retiring." Ogodei said, thumping his chest proudly. "We're too tough for that."

"I dunno." Kahchi sighed. "Maybe Mongke had a point. I am getting on in years, and it would be nice to see my son again."

"So why don't you?" Hakoda pressed.

"Well…" Kahchi sighed. "Because he is an honorable man, of course. Ever since Iroh tried to court martial me, he'll never see me as anything other than an outlaw."

Hakoda stopped stroking the nose ring. This was striking fairly close to home. He often wondered whether Katara or Sokka would forgive him, for leaving them while he dealt with the war. He wouldn't have felt worthy of being their papa if he hadn't stuck to his convictions and helped with the war effort. But he wondered if, by now, he wasn't worthy of being called papa regardless.

"Have you asked him?" Hakoda breathed.

Kahchi shook his head. "No. I can't. He has a wife now… she doesn't even know who I am. How could I show up at his door after missing the wedding?"

"By retiring from banditry." Hakoda suggested. "If you just keep raiding villages, then all of those people who call you honor less will be justified. But you have it in you to prove them wrong, and take up a more honorable profession."

"But what if he's not wrong though?" Kahchi muttered, and Hakoda felt for the poor guy, even if he was a psychotic Fire Nation raider.

"What honorable profession requires a Guan Do user anyway?" Ogodei asked. His bottle of wine was half empty, and his eyes were dazed. "It's not like he can rejoin the military. Especially after today."

"No, but we could try to change tactics." Hakoda said. "Not just for monetary gain, but for our mental health as a group. I mean, look at how happy Yeh-Lu's been after we saved the village! If we'd raided it, he might never have met his true love!"

"Yoo hoo Yeh-Lu!" As they spoke a stout lady emerged from the crowd, a bundle of brightly colored rockets under her arm. "I found some fireworks!"

"Earth girl." Ogodei spat on the ground. "May as well fall in love with mud."

"I'm just surprised it is a girl." Vachir whispered back.

Yeh-lu either didn't hear them, or pretended not to as he went to greet her. "Milady!" The demolition expert proclaimed, in a surprisingly aristocratic voice. He pulled her into an embrace and spun her around in a circle. In return, she energetically kissed him, her tongue somehow finding its way through one of the holes in his ever present mask.

"That will never stop being creepy." Ogodei said, looking fit to throw up. Hakoda sent him a glare. It may have been slightly creepy when Janna jumped in alongside the Riders to light up some of the Fire Nation troops, true love should never be referred to as creepy.

"Janna my love." Yeh-Lu set her down like he would a glass grenade. "Oft has it been quoted by bards famed and profane that absence makes the heart grow fonder. But never in my life has my inner fire been so dampened as it has been while you left me. Never so eager to see you return, my savior sent by fate's providence."

Janna blushed furiously and smiled shyly. "I was only gone for five minutes." She squeaked. "But… back atchya hot stuff."

The masked mercenary took the bundle of fireworks from her. "Come, let us find a stage worthy of enjoying your bounty! I daresay the warmth we shall feel will be second only to the warmth of our hearts, and the beauty of the flames second only to the beauty of the work of art standing before me."

Janna choked back a giggle with a snort. "Oh, go on. I also brought marshmallows and napalm pine oil." Her eyes lit up with the joy of pyromania.

Ogodei shuddered as the pair walked happily away from the campfire. "Can you imagine if those two had kids?" He asked with a grimace.

"Come to think of it, I've never seen what's underneath Yeh-lu's mask." Kahchi said contemplatively.

"The point, guys, is that Yeh-lu is happy." Hakoda said. "And if there is a baby coming out of all of this, then we should do our best to protect it. He'd be one of us."

Hakoda tried not to cringe at the irony that he himself wasn't one of them.

They all nodded, even Ogodei. "Even if the baby is half earth, it's still one of us." He said.

"Love knows no boundaries." Hakoda scolded him.

"What I don't get, is where this is coming from." Vachir said, his penetrating gaze raking over Hakoda. "You've been fine with just raiding towns and splitting the profits before. What changed? Why are you suddenly so interested in our personal lives?"

Because as a leader, Hakoda could never command any presence of fear. He could barely muster any respect, unless he'd earned it three times over. He was not an awe inspiring preence on the battle field – at least, not in his old body. But what he could do, was treat each soldier under his command as though they were one of his own children.

It was the only coin he had to buy the loyalty of the Rough Rhino Riders.

"I dunno." He shrugged. "Maybe I'm just having a mid-life crisis."

* * *

The next morning, Sokka woke up first, at the break of day. He hoped that this wouldn't be a regular thing, what with being a 'natural fire bender'. He woke Zuko up, and dragged him into the monk's dormitories for the most vital mission of the war.

"Are you almost done in there?" Toph asked, as she paced with irritation outside.

"Nearly!" Sokka called back. He winced as Zuko's needle jabbed him. "Ow! Be careful where you sew!"

Zuko glared at him, pins sticking out of his mouth.

"Right." Sokka sighed, as he remembered dad's lessons about treating people with respect. "Sorry."

Zuko took the pins out of his mouth, and began the finishing touches on the armor plating. "You're lucky I know how to sew at all."

"I don't expect they teach sewing in 'how-to-conquer-the-world' class." Sokka nodded sagely. So he should respect people, that didn't mean he was above giving a fire nation jerk a jab or two. "Did you have time to look over the scroll we found last night?"

Zuko nodded distractedly. "It was written in Ancient Spirit."

"Ancient Spirit?" Sokka asked.

"The language of the old spirits. It's sometimes used as the Language of the Scholars. It's a dead language, hasn't been used in almost eight thousand years. The scroll was written by an Avatar Mori. Mori claimed that sometime nine thousand years ago, a powerful spirit was locked away during a confrontation with the Avatar."

"Locked away how?" Sokka asked.

"The scroll didn't say." Zuko frowned, and tugged a little at the fabric. "But apparently, this ancient being was still able to talk to other spirits. The scroll said that he called in a favor from Koh the Face Stealer. Koh was to take the dark spirit's place as the enemy of the avatar during its incarceration. But Koh is lazy, and only every third avatar or so actually had to face him. When Koh does show up and make trouble, the Avatar is placed in someone else's body – there weren't any details on how or why each body is chosen to be switched – and a temporary avatar is given license to use his or her powers."

Sokka beamed. When he was a kid, he'd been left behind. So many people had written him off as a goof, and even when his dad taught him how to handle a boomerang, only Bato would treat him with any sort of respect. He'd always wanted to be a brave water tribe warrior. But now, he'd been inducted into the most elite, the most courageous, the most prestigious fighting force in history.

He was a temporary avatar.

Look out world, here he comes.

"So now we have a name." Sokka said determinedly. "Who is this Koh guy, and how do I fight him?"

Zuko looked up at him in shock. "You don't know?" Then he shook his head. "Of course you don't know. The day before the New Year, All Hallows Eve. That's the day when the spirit world and the physical world are the closest, save for the Solstices. On that day, we have everybody wear masks, so Koh won't steal your face."

"So he's a face stealer, and I'll be fine if I can find a mask." Sokka summarized glibly. "Then all that's left is for me to find him, and kick his tail."

"It's not that simple." Zuko said. "A mask may work on All Hallow's Eve, but if you meet him in the spirit world, he could very well steal your face. The key is to not show any emotion."

"Well then, you can go and beat him up." Sokka compromised.

Zuko huffed. "It's done." He said, putting the needles down. "Toph! You can come in now. Feel free to point and laugh."

As Toph came in, Sokka struck a pose. He waited for a while, and was pleased to hear no laughter.

Sokka's clothes were the clothes of a warrior. His feet were clad with sturdy Fire Nation boots, with the red paint scraped off or painted over to be completely black. His pants were air nomad, a slightly orange gold, and poofy. But they were only there to keep him warm; the real fashion statement was the battle dress. He was right when he saw Avatar Kyoshi; battle dresses were awesome. It was air nomad red, and flowed just right in the wind, accentuated with the Fire Nation armor plates that protected the sides (again, the armor was blackened. Sokka may technically be a fire bender, and he may admire the efficiency of their armor, but he was not on the same side as the monsters that killed his mother).

The finisher was his vest. It was made out of wool; Sky Bison wool. Apparently, the big guys shed a bit. He'd made a guess that, with the Sky Bison flying at altitudes like the temple, they must have some pretty warm fur to protect them from the wind. And he was right! He didn't even need to wear a shirt under the vest. Aang's body wasn't as muscular as Sokka's body, but Sokka thought he could fix that soon enough with the right training. And in the meantime, the white vest with a grey arrow on the back showed off his other arrows stylishly. He wore black shoulder plates just for style, but Zuko's fitted some lighter armor in behind the chest area of the vest. The only remainder of his Water Tribe heritage was his seastone warrior choker.

All in all, the look said; 'I'm an air bender, and I mean business'.

Not that Sokka could bend air yet, but he was in an air nomad's body. And these guys were the first casualties of the war. He wanted to honor their sacrifice.

Toph drank it all in, and walked around Sokka.

Then she took a piece of paper out, and started comparing it to Sokka. "This looks nothing like your drawing."

"Will you forget the drawing!?" Sokka flushed with embarrassment. "Come on Toph, how does it look!?"

"Like you're ready for a fight." Toph confirmed with a smirk.

"Yes!" Sokka pumped his fists. "Then I'm ready to get off this mountain!"

Zuko frowned. "You aren't finished your training. You've barely even begun your training."

"I can finish it on the way." Sokka said, waving off his concerns. "But right now we need to track down our families before the trail gets cold."

Zuko nodded. "Toph's family is closest. We'll start at Gaoling." Sokka saw Toph shoot him a grateful look, and decided he should probably be worried about that.

"Is there a temple between here and Gaoling?" He asked. "We might be able to pick up a few clues about where Koh is, and how to beat him."

Zuko thought about it. "Kyoshi Island has an avatar shrine. I doubt it has anything about Koh, since the last avatar to face him was Avatar Kuruk, her predecessor. But it might be worth checking out. We can't leave any stone unturned."

"That's right." Sokka nodded. "Do you have a map?"

"I think there may be a map room somewhere." He said. "I'll go find it, you head outside and continue training with Toph."

"Sounds like a plan!" Sokka clapped his hands excitedly, and tried not to look too conspicuous as he and Toph went to go practice.

"You're getting good Snoozles." She was saying, as they approached the yard. "But you've still got a long way to go. When we get to Galoing I'm going to be testing you're bending against some real pros, and they won't go easy on you. So if we finish the basics by the time we reach Kyoshi Island, I think I can let you in on some –"

Sokka pulled her close and placed a hand over her mouth. Giving one more suspicious look behind him, he pulled an angrily muffling Toph into the shadow of a pillar.

"Listen, Toph." Sokka levelled a look at her. "Don't yell. I need to talk to you in private."

Toph glared at him. He slowly removed his hand. "You'd better have a brilliant explanation for this." She hissed.

"I know you told Zuko we figured out how to switch him back to his body."

Toph frowned. "You can't expect him to trust you if you don't trust him." She said.

"He's Fire Nation. I don't trust him at all. But I want your word that you won't tell Zuko this next bit."

Toph raised her eyebrows. "And what makes you think I won't tell him?"

"Toph, this is serious. You're either with me or against me on this; if you tell him what I'm telling you, I'll find myself another earth bending teacher."

Her eyes went wide with shock. With his hand firmly on her wrist, she could feel his heartbeat. He wasn't lying. This wasn't a bluff. If Sokka couldn't trust Toph do what was right, he'd find someone else to teach him. He'd still keep an eye on her of course, because she was living in his sister's body. But he wouldn't be able to trust her.

This was a war, and he was a soldier. She may be looking for friends, but he was looking for advantages.

"Okay." She hid her shock, and put on her bartering face. "I'll keep your secret if you tell me everything he told you before I walked into your private conversation."

That made Sokka curious. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because you're asking me to keep secrets from a friend." Toph said. "And I want to help my friend. This way, we both get what we want."

"How does me telling you about him help?"

"That boy's not right in the head."

"Well duh, he's Fire Nation."

"Am I the only one here who actually sees what's going on?" Toph groaned. "It goes deeper than that. Way deeper. Something's very wrong with Zuko, and I want to help him."

Sokka did not like the idea of the enemy prince being on his team. But… he considered himself an intelligent man. Once who thought outside the box, and used new ideas to his advantage. He could see the benefits of having someone on his team who knew the bad guys inside and out. Fighting fire with fire as they say.

"Alright, I promise I'll help." Sokka said. "But listen, here's the thing; when the temple lit up, I felt others light up too."

"Other temples?" Toph asked.

"Yes. I felt them everywhere. Anybody who's looking for the avatar will know he's back… or at least, I'm back. We have to lower our nets now, while the bait's in the water."

"Huh?"

"I mean, that now people know the avatar is back, they'll be looking for him to lead. Now is the perfect time to start a rebellion. And the avatar may not be able to lead it, but I can. That's my job; to be the Avatar until I can find him again. We'll figure out this whole face switching thing when we have time, but Aang's counting on me to take up his mantle."

"And you want to keep this a secret because you're worried how Zuko will react?"

"I'm not worried, I know exactly how he'll react. That's the problem. It may feel weird having one of the bad guys on my team, but he's the only one of us who has experience tracking down things that most people think our myths. If we want our bodies back, we need him."

Toph frowned. "So that's why you asked him about Kyoshi Island."

Sokka nodded.

"Fine." She huffed. "I'll lie to him. But I don't like it.

Sokka nodded gravely. But the decision had been made, no matter how Toph was displeased.

* * *

**A/N: Wow, when did this fic start shipping Toko? That is some serious Toko shipping going on there, I meant for this story to be Zutara, what is happening? Ah well, there's still time for Zuko to stop flirting with her and treat Toph like a little sister when he realizes that her original body is… how old is Toph anyway? I know she'd still be younger than him, but would there even be that much of an age gap?**

**Ah well. So, in other news, Momo is now Toph's pet, and she has named him Spooky. The old guy the Jet robbed who helped Sokka save the village is a member of the White Lotus Society, as it turns out! And so is the tour guide from the Great Divide! Who else is a member of the White Lotus Society?**

**(hint: one of them might foam at the mouth a little)**

**I hope you like my little explanation for why Jun's shirshu could smell a rat a continent away, but wasn't having his nose disabled by perfume a continent away. It also explained why the Guru is living on the mountains, and why Jun knew what it meant when Nyla couldn't smell Aang.**

**So, a lot of coincidences are happening. As it turns out, there will be even more coincidences in future chapters. A lot of people would find achieving their goals easier in different bodies, but some people are ridiculously well off in their new bodies. Lots of coincidences.**

**So, I will put this issue to rest right now. Some people have said it was a good move to put the three most sarcastic members of the gaang as the heroes of the fic. Some have wondered how I chose whose bodies to switch with whose. The answer; it was entirely at random. All of it. I put the characters in a column, numbered their places in the column, and pushed the button on the random number generator until each person had a randomly generated body.**

**That's it. The most I interfered with this process, was making two columns; one for girls and one for boys. I'm humble enough that I can acknowledge I am not a skilled enough writer to make full use of the drama that would happen if, say, Uncle Iroh wound up in Katara's body. If anyone else feels up to the task, you be my guest and make a story completely random, but as for me, I added that limitation to the randomness. Other than that, it was entirely luck that Sokka, Toph, and Zuko, ended up in a position to be the main team. Fortune dictated that Jeong Jeong got to be a water bender, and the Earth King got to be traumatized by being Zhao.**

**Originally, before I added all the other characters, it was just the Gaang and Iroh, and this is what the fic would have looked like (bodies on the left, people inside the bodies on the right).**

**Aang – Zuko**

**Zuko – Sokka**

**Suki – Toph**

**Sokka – Iroh**

**Katara – Suki**

**Toph – Katara**

**Iroh – Aang**

**Can you imagine a world where Zuko is in the avatar's body, and Aang is counselling him while pretending to be roly poly uncle Iroh? If anybody feels like writing that story please let me know I would love it. But the point is, I did not keep Aang and Iroh where they were when I added the other characters to the mix. I mixed them in thoroughly. This is all random. I'm just taking advantage of the narrative possibilities open to me.**

**I hope you like this chapter. Sorry it was slow in coming, but the scenes with the Gaang were tough to write. Worth it though, wasn't it? The Southern Air Temple was an emotional episode, and I wanted to keep it that way even if Aang was gone. I might have a chapter of outtakes at the end of the fic, to show you one or two of the different ways the talk between Toph and Zuko could have gone differently. This was an entirely different chapter before the diting process, with Sokka revealing his intentions to oppose the fire nation out loud, and Toph being forced to fight Zuko, eventually knocking him off the mountain. But I wanted to keep it non-action, and play to the character's emotional states as they let what's happening to them sink in.**

**And I had to make sure I wrote Sokka appropriately too. As much as I love him, he is not a protagonist. He is a side character, the comic relief. And when thrust into the role of the main character, forced not just to lead, which he does very well, but to inspire, which is much more Aang's job, he will make mistakes. Sokka never makes friends in the series; other people make friends with him. He looks at people like he's measuring them up for fight, as opposed to Aang who asked people to help him because he thinks they're nice. He'll get better as time goes on. Neither he, nor Zuko nor Toph, have had time for adequate character development yet.**

**And as for Sokka being a natural fire bender? I took internet quizzes for him. That's right, I searched up twenty different 'Which bender are you?' personality quizzes, and answered as Sokka would. And he tested positive for fire bending eleven times out of the twenty. A further seven were water, and two were earth. Personality quizzes can be weird, right?**

**When I first started writing fanfiction, I made a promise I would publish a chapter a week. I laugh at my young naivety. I was rushed, and sometimes the chapters I wrote went un reviewed, un edited, and un polished. I am very busy in real life, and coming up with a chapter a week is no longer a feasible reality for me, much less a good chapter. I'll try to make my chapters shorter in the future so you can read them easily, but I mention this because the next chapter will take a while to write. Just a little heads up.**

**But don't worry, I've also learned my lesson about writing long chapters. This chapter was exploring the widespread effects of the body switch alongside our protagonist's troubles. While I may delve into their sub plots from time to time, from now on the focus of the story will be on Sokka, Zuko, and Toph. No more incredibly long chapters (this was just exhausting to write).**


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